LECTURES AND ESS A YS 



I have referred in connection with Mr. 

 Darwin, is not absent in Mr. Spencer. 

 His illustrations possess at times exceed- 

 ing vividness and force; and from his 

 style on such occasions it is to be in- 

 ferred that the ganglia of this Apostle of 

 the Understanding are sometimes the 

 seat of a nascent poetic thrill. 



It is a fact of supreme importance that 

 actions, the performance of which at first 

 requires even painful effort and delibera- 

 tion, may, by habit, be rendered auto- 

 matic. Witness the slow learning of its 

 letters by 'a child, and the subsequent 

 facility of reading in a man, when each 

 group of letters which forms a word is 

 instantly, and without effort, fused to a 

 single perception. Instance the billiard- 

 player, whose muscles of hand and eye, 

 when he reaches the perfection of his art, 

 are unconsciously co-ordinated. Instance 

 the musician, who, by practice, is enabled 

 to fuse a multitude of arrangements, 

 auditory, tactual, and muscular, into a 

 process of automatic manipulation. Com- 

 bining such facts with the doctrine of j 

 hereditary transmission, we reach a theory 

 of Instinct. A chick, after coming out 

 of the egg, balances itself correctly, runs 

 about, picks up food, thus showing that 

 it possesses a power of directing its move- 

 ments to definite ends. How did the 

 chick learn this very complex co-ordina- 

 tion of eyes, muscles, and beak ? It has 

 not been individually taught ; its per- 

 sonal experience is nil; but it has the 

 benefit of ancestral experience. In its 

 inherited organisation are registered the 

 powers which it displays at birth. So 

 also as regards the instinct of the hive- 

 bee, already referred to. The distance 

 at which the insects stand apart when 

 they sweep their hemispheres and build 

 their cells is " organically remembered." 

 Man also carries with him the physical 

 texture of his ancestry, as well as the 

 inherited intellect bound up with it. 

 The defects of intelligence during in- 

 fancy and youth are probably less due to 

 a lack of individual experience than to 

 the fact that in early life the cerebral 

 organisation is still incomplete. The \ 



period necessary for completion varies 

 with the race and with the individual. 

 As a round shot outstrips the rifled bolt 

 on quitting the muzzle of the gun, so the 

 lower race, in childhood, may outstrip 

 the higher. But the higher eventually 

 overtakes the lower, and surpasses it in 

 range. As regards individuals, we do 

 not always find the precocity of youth 

 prolonged to mental power in maturity ; 

 while the dulness of boyhood is some- 

 times strikingly contrasted with the intel- 

 lectual energy of after years. Newton, 

 when a boy, was weakly, and he showed 

 no particular aptitude at school ; but in 

 his eighteenth year he went to Cam- 

 bridge, and soon afterwards astonished 

 his teachers by his power of dealing with 

 geometrical problems. During his quiet 

 youth his brain was slowly preparing 

 itself to be the organ of those energies 

 which he subsequently displayed. 



By myriad blows (to use a Lucretian 

 phrase) the image and superscription of 

 the external world are stamped as states 

 of consciousness upon the organism, the 

 depth of the impression depending on 

 the number of the blows. When two or 

 more phenomena occur in the environ- 

 ment invariably together, they are stamped 

 to the same depth or to the same relief, 

 and indissolubly connected. And here 

 we come to the threshold of a great ques- 

 tion. Seeing that he could in no way 

 rid himself of the consciousness of Space 

 and Time, Kant assumed them to be 

 necessary "forms of intuition," the moulds 

 and shapes into which our intuitions are 

 thrown belonging to ourselves, and with- 

 out objective existence. With unexpected 

 power and success, Mr. Spencer brings 

 the hereditary experience theory, as he 

 holds it, to bear upon this question. 

 " If there exist certain external relations 

 which are experienced by all organisms 

 at all instants of their waking lives- 

 relations which are absolutely constant 

 and universal there will be established 

 answering internal relations, that are 

 absolutely constant and universal. Such 

 relations we have in those of Space and 

 Time. As the substratum of all other 



