i2 4 THE KINGDOM OF MAN 



nerve-mechanisms of instinct are transmitted, and owe 

 their inferiority as compared with the results of education 

 to the very fact that they are not acquired by the indi- 

 vidual in relation to his particular needs, but have arisen 

 by selection of congenital variation in a long series of 

 preceding generations.' 



' To a large extent the two series of brain-mechanisms, 

 the " instinctive " and the " individually acquired," are 

 in opposition to one another. Congenital brain-mechan- 

 isms may prevent the education of the brain and the 

 development of new mechanisms specially fitted to the 

 special conditions of life. To the educable animal the 

 less there is of specialised mechanism transmitted by 

 heredity, the better. The loss of instinct is what 

 permits and necessitates the education of the receptive 

 brain.' 



' We are thus led to the view that it is hardly pos- 

 sible for a theory to be further from the truth than 

 that expressed by George H. Lewes and adopted by 

 George Romanes, namely, that instincts are due to 

 " lapsed " intelligence. The fact is that there is no 

 community between the mechanisms of instinct and 

 the mechanisms of intelligence, and that the latter are 

 later in the history of the development of the brain 

 than the former, and can only develop in proportion as 

 the former become feeble and defective.' 1 



Darwinism. Under the title ' Darwinism ' it is con- 

 venient to designate the various work of biologists 

 tending to establish, develop, or modify Mr. Darwin's 

 great theory of the origin of species. In looking back 

 over twenty-five years it seems to me that we must 

 say that the conclusions of Darwin as to the origin of 



1 From the Jubilee volume of the Soc. de Biol. of Paris, 1899. Re- 

 printed in Nature, vol. Ixi., 1900, pp. 624, 625, 



