AN ENQUIUY INTO THE FORMATION OF HABIT IN MAN. 1G7 



chemical laws originating- iu liabit ; also " the habit of all ova 

 to build organisms in accordance with certain exact laws." 

 To me, the meaning is hardly clear. I would only protest 

 that instincts (like those mentioned of the jelly-fish, amoeba 

 and the ant and bee), spoken of doubtfully as "at first 

 voluntarily acquired habits," and that may "as Romanes suggests, 

 speak to us of lapsed intelligence," offer no evidence of so 

 originating, and therefore no ground for the question Dr. Scho- 

 field raises, but considers '' unanswerable in our present state of 

 knowledge." It seems to me that the fatal lack of proof of any 

 such origin, and the impossibility of it in the light of both mental 

 and biological science, is just what our present knowledge does 

 give. Dr. Romanes himself presents wonderful instances o£ 

 seeming intelligence in protozoa, jelly-fish and star-fish, but rules 

 them all out for the reason that in such low animals it is unreason- 

 able to suppose intelligence, although he admits that if we depend 

 on appearances (or analogy, as he argues in his preface) we should 

 have to attribute conscious determination to even microscopical 

 organisms. I have criticised his arguments at length in my 

 work entitled The Spirit of Beauty, a copy of which is in the 

 library of the Institute. 



Instinct has been the piece de resistance of much discussion. Far 

 preferable to any wild notion of instincts as originating in reason 

 and will, is Darwin's view that they began in chance acts favourable 

 to the perpetuation of species — though of course few can believe 

 that there is any such thing as pure chance. Understood with 

 some qualification, his explanation may be admitted under the 

 category of second causes, while the astounding marvels of complex 

 instinct may still enforce the doctrine of a Divine direction. True, 

 mind (a very general term) may be predicated of all animal life 

 in one sense or another ; and we may also favour the view of 

 Agassiz and others that a spiritual element is the organising cause 

 in^very embryo- cell, determining its development. Bat intelligence 

 in animals should be qualified as animal intelligence, or else left to 

 the popular language that ascribes the signal- associated acts of a 

 trick-pony to "extraordinary intelligence." Unqualified, the word 

 is rightly defined as — the faculty of understanding — capability of 

 comprehending facts or ideas. 



The question does not tarn upon definition and philosophy only. 

 The key of it is in the simplest expeinments, which anyone can 

 perform. On the first feeding of meat to a kitten and a puppy, 



