202 INSTINCT. Chap. VII. 



origin. How unconsciously many habitual actions are per* 

 fornieil, indeed not rarely in direct opposition to our conscious 

 Avill ! yet tlicy may be modified by the ■will or reason. Habits 

 easily become associated with other habits, and witli certain 

 periods of time and states of the body. A\'hcn once acquired, 

 they often remain constant throughout life. Several other points 

 of resemblance between instincts and habits could be pointed 

 out. As in repeating a well-known song, so in instincts, one 

 action follows another by a sort of rhythm ; if a ])erson be in- 

 terrupted in a song, or in repeating any thing by rote, he is 

 generally forced to go back to recover the habitual train of 

 thought : so P. Huber found it Avas with a caterpillar, which 

 makes a very complicated hammock ; for if he took a cater- 

 pillar which had completed its hammock up to, say the sixth 

 stage of construction, and put it into a hammock completed up 

 only to the third stage, the caterpillar simply reperformed 

 the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of construction. If, however, 

 a cater])illar were taken out of a hammock made up, for in- 

 stance, to the third stage, and were put into one finished up to 

 the sixth stage, so that much of its work was already done for 

 it, far from feeling the benefit of this, it was much embarrassed, 

 and, in order to complete its hammock, seemed forced to start 

 from the third stage, where it had left off, and thus tried to 

 complete the already-finished work. 



If we suppose any habitual action to become inherited — and 

 I think it can be shown that tliis does sometimes happen — 

 then the resemblance between Avhat originally was a habit and 

 an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished. If 

 Mozart, instead of playing the jiiano-forte at three years old 

 with wonderfully little jiracticc, had played a tune with no 

 l)ractice at all, he might truly be said to have done so instinc- 

 tivclv. But it would be a serious error to suppose that the 

 greater number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one 

 generation, and then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding 

 generations. It can be clearly shown that the most wonder- 

 ful instincts with which we arc acquainted, namely, those of 

 the hive-bee and of many ants, could not possibly have been 

 acqtiired by habit. 



It will be universally admitted that instincts are as imjior- 

 tant as corporeal structure for the welf:ire of each species, un- 

 der its present conditions of life. lender changed conditions 

 of life, it is at least possible that slight modifications of in- 

 stinct might be profitable to a species ; and if it can be shown 



