VOLUNTARY ACTION 223 



instinct of moving varies likewise, expressing itself first 

 in running and jumping and in catching on, then in lying 

 within the cell, and, lastly, in flying about on bushes and 

 trees." 1 



378. Manifestly during the whole of this complicated pro- 

 ceeding the beetle is quite independent of experience, of 

 memory. He does each action once and never repeats it. 

 From the nature of the case he can never have seen similar 

 actions done by other beetles. Instinct guides and keeps 

 him to a narrow, rigid line of life, for which it is all sufficient, 

 and from which if he strays he perishes. In accordance with 

 Nature's law of parsimony, therefore, the power of making 

 mental acquirements, the power of using past experiences as 

 guides to future conduct cannot exist to any extent in him. 

 Even if he possessed an extended memory, it would undergo 

 regression in his descendants. It is conceivable that the 

 beginnings of memory are present in him. In a form so 

 rudimentary as to be unobservable by us, he may need it 

 and perhaps does use it for some of the smaller actions of 

 his life ; but his main line of conduct is predetermined by 

 instinct. 2 



1 Weismann, The Evolution Theory, vol. i., pp. 150-1. 



2 Professor Richet (Revue Philosophique, XXI. 570, quoted by 

 James) insists that " Without memory no conscious sensation, without 

 memory no consciousness." But clearly he is mistaken. The act of 

 feeling a sensation is quite distinct irom the act of remembering it, 

 and there is no conceivable reason why the former should not occur 

 without the latter. ' All he is entitled to say is that without memory 

 no consciousness known outside of itself." Professor Romanes declares 

 that "Memory must be, and x is, a faculty which appears very early in 

 the development of mind. A priori, this must be so because conscious- 

 ness without memory would be useless to the animal possessing it." 

 But we have not the least evidence of memory in Sitaris, ar>d it is hard 

 to imagine of what use it would be to her. Before a sensation can be 

 remembered it must be felt ; but, if felt, it need not necessarily be 

 remembered. All the evidence points to the conclusion that the faculty 

 of feeling was evolved long before the faculty of remembering. That 

 a sensation may be useful to an individual it is not necessary that he 

 should remember the circumstances under which he felt it before ; it 

 is only necessary that it should be a spark which explodes an appropriate 

 reflex or instinctive action. Remembrance is useful only to those 

 animals in whom the action is not reflex or instinctive, and in whom, 

 therefore, it is initiated, not by the sensation alone, but by the sensation 

 plus the memory of a past event. Professor Romanes' own experiments 

 provide some excellent examples of lack of memory in low animals. 

 " For instance, I have taken a hermit crab, put it into a tank filled with 

 water, and when he had protruded his head from the shell of the whelk 

 in which he was residing, I gently moved towards him a pair of open 

 scissors, and gave him plenty of time to see the glistening object. Then, 

 slowly including the tip of one of his tentacles between one of the open 



