38 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



ing through many editions and being translated into 

 French and Dutch— in this work (§98) Reimarus says: 

 '' The mechanical instincts of animals are not so fixed 

 in every point that the creature is not left the power 

 to modify them according to circumstances and the 

 extent of his own knowledge." * And the first sen- 

 tence of § 101 runs thus: "Animals may sometimes err 

 in their impulses, though this seldom happens when 

 they are entirely left to themselves." 



The denial of inherited instinct can in no wise be 

 regarded as established. Eeimarus himself has contro- 

 verted, on grounds which in essentials are not yet ob- 

 solete, those who regard instinct as an empty or mean- 

 ingless word.f For example, he says in §93: "Many 

 mechanical instincts are practised from birth without 

 experience, instruction, or example, and yet faultlessly. 

 They are thus seen to be certainly inborn and inherited. 

 . . . This is the case with all insect grubs that envelop 

 themselves with a spun web, such as wasps and many 

 caterpillars, bees, and ants. How can a worm that has 

 lived scarcely a day, and that shut up in the dark 

 ground or a little shell, possibly have acquired of itself 

 such skill from experience or from lessons and examples? 



* See the fra^i^mentary posthumous publication, H. S. Reima- 

 rus's Angefauf^ene Betrachtungen iiber die besonderen Arten der 

 thierischen Kunsttriebe, Hamburg, 1773, introduction. 



f I fully agree with A. Kussmaul in what he says of the "splen- 

 did work " of Reimarus, *' which will stand for all time as a model 

 for critical investigators in this subject " (Unters. liber d. Seelen- 

 leben des neugeborenen Menschen, Leipsic, 1850, p. 5). The book 

 of G. F. Meier (Versuch eines neuen Lehrgebaudes von den Seelen 

 der Thiere, Halle, 1749) is also celebrated, but can not be compared 

 with Reimarus' work, seeing that, excepting some observations on 

 ants, it contains essentially only the typical " logical reasoning o£ 

 the EnlightenmenL" 



