358 LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 



transmissible to offspring ; while instincts, forcibly in- 

 terfered with, often evolve new faculties of action, 

 which, if we shrink from calling them acts of reason, 

 can only be understood as newly-developed forms of 

 instinct a difficult conception, indeed, in seeking to 

 realise which we plunge at once into the inner mys- 

 teries of the question. What is the power at work in 

 the purely instinctive acts of animal life ? in the in- 

 stincts, for example, of the bee, the ant, the spider, the 

 salmon, the beaver, the tailor and weaver birds, and 

 endless others ? The instances most familiar to us re- 

 present in effect the marvel of the whole, and put the 

 question of origin into its most cogent shape. Newton 

 found no other solution than that the Author of life is 

 himself the moving power in the innumerable forms of 

 instinct risking in this the charge of pantheism, that 

 barrier at which so many attempts to reach what is 

 unreachable corne to an end. 



We cannot err, however, in regarding life, and the 

 generation of life from life, as integral parts of the 

 same great problem, Instincts, define or distinguish 

 them as we will, are strictly appurtenances of gene- 

 ration of that power which transmits hereditary like- 

 ness from one generation of a species to another. The 

 question whether, and how far, they are dependent on 

 mere bodily organisation, merges in this, though we 

 can hardly say that it thereby comes nearer to any 

 sure solution. That many instincts have a special 

 organisation adapted to them is too well known to 

 need illustration ; and it is equally certain that 

 changes in organs, arising from external causes, may, 



