Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 25 



was better developed? Or is it due to some other 

 cause ? 



At present we will not attempt to answer such questions 

 as these. We are concerned merely in drawing as clearly 

 as possible a distinction which shall enable us to put the 

 questions in a definite and intelligible form. It is a matter 

 of no small importance accurately to focus the point of 

 such questions. 



The distinction between that which is congenital and 

 that which is acquired may be further illustrated from 

 a structural point of view. There is an inherited organic 

 mechanism through the possession of which an animal 

 is fitted to perform certain more or less definite and 

 adaptive activities without learning, with little or no 

 practice (though even in these cases practice helps to 

 make perfect), through no teaching, by no imitation, 

 and without any individual experience on which intelli- 

 gent choice of the best mode of procedure could be 

 based. This is due to what may be termed conc/enital 

 automatism. On the other hand, there is an organic 

 mechanism which is gradually developed during the 

 individual lifetime, through the due co-ordination and 

 persistent repetition of certain selected activities. These 

 activities, by constant repetition, themselves become 

 automatic as habits. We may term the working of this 

 organic mechanism, which is thus developed during the 

 course of individual life, acquired automatism. The bio- 

 logical question is — Does the acquired automatism of one 

 generation contribute, through inheritance, to the con- 

 genital automatism of the next ? 



There is still, however, the difficulty suggested but 

 not removed a few pages back, that after all an animal 

 can only acquire that for acquiring which it inherits a 

 potentiality; and that we must in any case, even when 



