THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND. 265 



ganism is the test of its adequacy. The continued ex- 

 istence of a series of organisms is the ultimate proof of 

 the truth of the senses. 



With the lower animals we have automatic obedience 

 to the demand of external conditions. The greater the 

 stress of the environment the more per- 

 fect the automatism, for impulses to safe 



instinct. . , , 



action must always be adequate for the 

 duty which in the ancestral past they have had to per- 

 form. To automatic mind processes inherited from 

 generation to generation the name instinct has been 

 given. Whether instinct is in any degree inherited 

 habit or whether it is the product simply of natural 

 selection acting upon the varying methods of automatic 

 response, destroying those whose responses are inade- 

 quate, need not concern us now. 



The homing instinct of the fur seal, concluding its 

 long swim of three thousand miles by a return on a little 



island hidden in the arctic fogs, to the 

 Instinct of the from which j t wag df . fe 



fur seal. , . . * 



the ice six months before, excites our as- 

 tonishment. But this power is not an illustration of 

 animal intelligence. The homing instinct with the fur 

 seal is a simple necessity of life. Without it the indi- 

 vidual would be lost to its species. Only those which 

 have the instinct in perfection can return. Only those 

 who return can leave descendants. As to the others the 

 rough sea tells no tales. We know that not all of the 

 fur seals who set forth come back. To those who do 

 return the homing instinct has proved adequate. And 

 this it must always be so long as the race exists, 

 for general inadequacy would mean extinction of the 

 species. 



The intellect, as distinguished from lower mental 

 operations, is the choice among responses to external 



