DECEMBER 24, 1897.] 
from the infant in that which is acquired, 
not in that which is inborn. At birth the 
infant’s mind is a blank; he can coordi- 
nate only a very few groups of muscles (e. 
g., the breathing, sucking and deftecating 
groups), and in these the coordination is 
never very delicate and elaborate. He 
knows nothing of his environment; he can- 
not, as can the dragon-fly, instinctively 
adapt himself to it. But gradually as his 
body develops under the influence of use 
and exercise, his mind develops also under 
the influence of experience, and the blank 
left by the retrogression of instinct is filled 
and more than filled by acquired knowl- 
edge and ways of thinking and acting. 
Slowly and painfully the infant learns to co- 
ordinate his different groups of muscles till 
at length he can perform such complex acts 
as speaking, writing and walking in which 
the codrdination is exceedingly delicate and 
elaborate.** Much, very much, besides the 
power of coordinating his muscles is ac- 
quired by man. For instance, all the vast 
*TIt has been denied (e. g., Lancet, May 1, 22 
and 29, 1897) that speech and bipedal progression 
are acquired. ‘The denial arises from that habit of 
thinking in abstract terms which is the bane of 
many writers. One cannot speak without words, 
and every word is acquired and, therefore, speech 
itself is acquired. For instance, no one is born with 
the knowledge of the word ‘brick.’ Again, this 
sound (brick), like wll others in a language, is pro- 
duced by a particular and very delicate and complex 
coordination of the speech muscles, different from 
what is required to reproduce any other sound. The 
child learns to make this coordination, justas in after 
life he may learn to make that coordination from which 
results a foreign word, or that codrdination of a dif- 
ferent set of muscles from which results a written 
word. Again, a child /earns to walk in just as true a 
sense as afterwards he may learn to bicycle. Speech 
and bipedal progression are common to the whole 
human race, and, therefore, they are invariably re- 
garded as inborn characters. Writing and bicycling 
are not common to the human race, and, therefore, 
they are regarded as acquired ; but very plainly the 
former are as much acquired as the latter. What 
alone is inborn is the power of acquiring speech and 
bipedal progression and vastly more besides. 
SCIENCE. 
937 
contents of his memory and all that arises 
out of memory are, of course, acquired. 
Here, again, all that is inborn is the power of 
acquiring the contents of the memory- I have 
elsewhere defined reason as ‘the faculty 
which is concerned in the conscious adap- 
tation of means to ends by virtue of ac- 
quired non-inherited knowledge and ways 
of thinking and acting.’** Compare, for 
instance, the construction of a cocoon by a 
caterpillar, or the first web spinning of a 
spider, to the construction of a house or the 
weaving of a net by aman. In the abso- 
lute absence of experience the caterpillar 
and the spider plainly act by virtue of in- 
born knowledge and ways of thinking and 
acting, in other words, by instinct; the 
man, on the other hand, as plainly acts by 
virtue of acquired knowledge and ways of 
thinking and acting, in other words, by 
reason.{ In fact, so vast a part does the 
* The Present Evolution of Man, p. 138. 
+ The terms ‘instinct’ and ‘reason’ are used very 
loosely even by scientific writers, the meaning of the: 
former often being too much extended, while that of 
the latter is too much restricted. Thus, it is said, 
that we instinctively like or dislike this or that ob- 
ject, e. g., man, implying thereby that we do so in 
the absence of experience. But the new-born infant 
(unlike the new-hatched fish) has no such instinctive 
like or dislike ; his subsequent likings or dislikings 
arise as a result of experience, whether such experi- 
ence remains as a recognizable part of consciousness or 
not. ‘Again, actions which depend on acquirement, 
but which have become automatic from frequent repe- 
tition, are often termed instinctive, owing to the 
instinct-like absence of mental effort with which 
they are ultimately performed (e. g., bipedal progres- 
sion; vide Present Evolution of Man, pp. 144--5). 
On the other hand, the term rational is often re- 
stricted to such actions as conspicuously result from 
a correct chain of inferences, or to such as are not. 
performed under the influence of violent emotion. 
For example, when an angry man embarks on foolish 
litigation we term his action irrational, thus expressly 
excluding it from the category of rational actions. 
But his action is certainly not reflex, nor, as cer- 
tainly, is it instinctive, and, therefore, if we group all 
actions under the headings of reflex, instinctive and 
rational this action can belong to the last group only.. 
