326 Habit and Instinct. 



behaviour, generally believed to be instinctive — such as 

 that of birds "feigning wounded" — appears to run 

 curiously parallel with that due to intelligent acquisition. 



19. Though there may be no direct transmission of 

 acquired characters, yet acquired modifications of structure 

 may permit congenital variations of a similar kind ; other 

 variations being suppressed by natural selection. 



20. The balance of evidence appears to favour the view 

 that instinctive behaviour is the result of natural selection 

 working on variations of germinal origin without the direct 

 transmission of acquired modifications of structure. 



Such in outline are the conclusions we have reached. 

 There is, however, one more aspect of the problems of 

 heredity and acquisition to which attention must be directed 

 before passing from the life of animals to the life of man. 

 There are two important processes which fall under the 

 head of acquisition. We acquire experience, and we acquire 

 skill. The first involves the correlation of incoming data 

 from the special senses, from the motor organs, and from 

 the viscera. The second implies the more or less accurate 

 co-ordination of outgoing impulses to the viscera and to 

 the motor organs, both those concerned in ministering to 

 sensation and those concerned in general activity. If, 

 then, the term " experience " be applied to the correlation 

 of incoming data from whatever source, it would appear 

 that such experience is wholly a matter of acquisition. To 

 illustrate once more by a very simple case, if nasty taste 

 or the power of stinging be associated with colour or form 

 in a caterpillar or insect, there appears to be no inherited 

 transmission of such an association in experience ; no 

 inherited suggestion of the taste on sight of the colour or 

 form. The associative foundations of suggestion have to 

 be laid in individual experience, and are solely a matter of 

 acquisition. Heredity seems to have nothing to do with 



