226 Habit and Instinct. 



men, at some exceedingly remote period of their history, 

 had agreed to express the common glad impulse, which they 

 now express in such an infinite variety of ways or do not 

 express at all, by dancing a minuet, and minuet-dancing 

 had at last come to be instinctive, and taken to spontaneously 

 by children at an early period, man's case would be like 

 that of the inferior animals." * 



Now, in this explanation there are in effect three distinct 

 propositions : (1) The origin of the activities is to be 

 found in periodic joyousness and emotional exaltation. 

 (2) The particular nature of the expression is determined 

 by common agreement. (3) The instinctive element of the 

 performance is due to inheritance by direct transmission 

 without elimination or selection. 



To the first of these propositions no exception need be 

 taken. Even those who may hesitate to accept the view 

 of Mr. Wallace and Prof. Geddes, that plumes and other 

 structural adornments are due to a surplus of growth - 

 power combined with that expenditure of protoplasmic 

 energy, and consequent development of waste products, 

 which characterizes the male as compared with the more 

 conservative and tissue-saving female, — even those who 

 hesitate to accept these views as applied to extravagance 

 of structural adornment, may be willing to accept fulness 

 and richness of vitality as a sufficient cause for fulness and 

 richness of motor activity as expressed in aerial evolution, 

 dance, and song. Granting, therefore, that the first of the 

 three propositions may be accepted, at least provisionally, 

 as affording an explanation of the origin of varied and 

 multiform activities, the next question that arises is, What 

 has guided these activities into certain definite channels 

 of dance or display or screaming concert? One hardly knows 

 whether to take quite seriously Mr. Hudson's suggestion — 



* "The Naturalist in La Plata," pp. 279-282. The italics are mine. 



