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CHAPTER XII. 



INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS. 



In this chapter I will consider, as briefly as possible, 

 the strongest argument that I have been able to dis- 

 cover against the supposition that instinct is chiefly 

 due to habit. I have said " the strongest argument ; " I 

 should have said, the only argument that struck me as 

 offering on the face of it serious difficulties. 



Turning, then, to Mr. Darwin's chapter on instinct 

 ("Natural Selection," ed. 1876, p. 205), we find sub- 

 stantially much the same views as those taken at a later 

 date by M. Ribot, and referred to in the preceding 

 chapter. Mr. Darwin writes : — 



" An action, which we ourselves require experience 

 to enable us to perform, when performed by an animal, 

 more especially a very young one, without experience, 

 and when performed by many animals in the same 

 way without their knowing for what purpose it is per- 

 formed, is usually said to be instinctive." 



The above should strictly be, " without their being 

 conscious of their own knowledge concerning the pur- 

 pose for which they act as they do ; " and though some 

 may say that the two phrases come to the same thing, 

 I think there is an important difference, as what I pro- 



