438 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 64. 



sity, has been elected professor of ethics in Cor- 

 nell University. 



The promotion of Associate Prof. George F. 

 Atkinson to the professorship of botany at Cor- 

 nell University will be followed by a reorgan- 

 ization of the courses of instruction in the de- 

 partment which will go into effect at the 

 opening of the coming year. Assistant Prof. 

 W. W. Rowlee has been promoted to the 

 highest grade of assistant professor ; E. J. 

 Durand, Sc. D., has been appointed instructor 

 in botany, and K. M. Wiegand, assistant. The 

 following advanced and graduate courses in 

 botany are offered for the coming year: By 

 Prof. Atkinson and Instructor Durand, com- 

 parative morphology and embryology, mycology 

 and algology. By Assistant Prof. Eowlee and 

 Assistant Wiegand, comparative histology, sys- 

 tematic botany and dendrology. 



Adjunct Prof. W. H. Echols has been 

 elected by the Board of the University of Vir- 

 ginia to the full chair of mathematics to succeed 

 Prof. C. S. Venable, who retires on account of 

 ill-health. ,J. Morris Page, of Johns Hop- 

 kins University, has been elected adjunct pro- 

 fessor. 



The senate of Cambridge University has re- 

 jected the proposition to appoint a committee 

 to consider the question of conferring degrees 

 upon women by a vote of 186 to 171. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



HEREDITY AND INSTINCT.* 



In his able posthumous work on Post-Dar- 

 winian Questions, Heredity and Utility, the la- 

 mented G. J. Romanes sums up the evidence 

 for the inheritance of acquired characters in 

 the final statement that only two valid argu- 

 ments remain on the affirmative side; and to 

 each of these arguments he has devoted consid- 

 erable space. One of these arguments is from 

 what he calls ' selective value,' and the other 

 from the ' co-adaptations ' found in the in- 

 stincts of animals. He says (p. 141): "Hence 

 there remain only the arguments from selective 

 value and co-adaptation." If we take the in- 



* Discussion (revised), following Prof. C. Lloyd 

 Morgan before the New York Academy of Sciences, 

 January 31, 1896. 



stincts as illustrating also the application of the 

 principle of 'selective value,' we may gather 

 the evidence which Mr. Romanes was disposed 

 to cling to for the inheritance of acquired char- 

 acters into a single net, and enquire as to the 

 need of resorting to the Lamarckian factor in 

 accounting for the origin of instinct. I wish to 

 suggest some considerations from the psycho- 

 logical side, which seems to me entirely compe- 

 tent to remove the force of these two argu- 

 ments, and to show to that extent that the in- 

 stincts can be accounted for without appeal to 

 the hypothesis of 'lapsed intelligence,' as the 

 use-hypothesis, as applied to this problem of 

 instinct, is called; in other words, to show that 

 Darwin and Romanes were not correct in con- 

 sidering instinct as 'inherited habit.' 



The argument from co-adaptation requires 

 the presence of some sort of intelligence in an 

 animal species ; the point being that since the 

 coordination of muscular movements found in 

 the instincts are so co-adapted they could 

 not have arisen by gradual variations. Partial 

 adaptations tending in the direction of an in- 

 stinct would not have been useful ; and intelli- 

 gence alone would sufiice to bring about the co- 

 ordinations which are too complex to be ac- 

 counted for as spontaneous variations. These 

 intelligent coordinations then become habits by 

 repetition in the individual and show them- 

 selves in later generations as inherited habits 

 due to 'lapsed intelligence.' Assuming, then, 

 with Romanes — whom we may take as the 

 most recent upholder of the view — the ex- 

 istence of some intelligence in a species antece- 

 dently to the appearance of the instinct in 

 question, we may be allowed that supposition 

 and resource. 



I. But now let us ask how the intelligence 

 brings about coordinations of muscular move- 

 ment. The psychologist is obliged to reply : 

 Only by a process of selection (through pleasure, 

 pain, experience, association, &c) from certain 

 alternative complex movements which are 

 already possible for the limb or member used. 

 These possible combinations are already there, 

 born with- him, or resulting from his pre- 

 vious habits. The intelligence can never, by 

 any possibility, create a new movement, or ef- 

 fect a new combination of movements, if the 



