390 Appendix C 



have been considered quite instinctive, — as the experiments 

 of Spalding and others seem to show, — are really a mixture 

 of congenital tendency and acquired habit. Some of these 

 activities are of vital importance, such as drinking, fleeing from 

 constant enemies (as the hawk), appreciating and acting upon 

 exact spatial relationships, etc. Such results, found also in 

 the examination of trustworthy reports of animals, as those of 

 Hudson in the Naturalist in La Plata, lead Professor Morgan 

 to his most important conclusions. Briefly stated, they are 

 somewhat as follows : — 



First, this imperfection of instinct, even in things vital to 

 the organism, emphasizes the intelligent and imitative learning 

 processes of young animals. These learning processes keep 

 them alive by supplementing their congenital activities and 

 structural capacities. This conclusion gives new importance 

 to the psychological processes. Second, the question arises 

 as to the sort of things which young animals learn and how 

 they can learn them. Upon this, again, observations throw 

 light. The fact appears that there are certain relatively constant 

 functions and activities handed down from generation to genera- 

 tion in animal families and communities, as has been theoreti- 

 cally insisted on by Wallace, and recently confirmed by the 

 observations of Hudson under the term * tradition,' and by the 

 present writer, who calls the individual's learning of tradition 

 ' social heredity.' And, third, the question of the method 

 of organic evolution has some light shed upon it, in Professor 

 Morgan's opinion, by the relation between these learning pro- 

 cesses of the animals and natural selection. Professor Morgan 

 here develops (Chap. XIV.) a suggestion which has also been 

 put forth by Professor H. F. Osborn, and independently reached 

 by the present writer, as Morgan points out, namely, that 

 by learning intelligently and imitatively to do things which are 

 essential, certain animals are screened from the operation of 

 natural selection, and so hand on their capacities to future 

 generations, while the race accumulates further congenital varia- 

 tions in the same directions (what Morgan calls ' coincident 

 variations '). Thus evolution takes the direction marked out 



