108 INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR 
his discussion of the subject Eimer makes no express allusion 
to primary instincts ; but he attributes to lapsed intelligence 
some of those which were classed by Romanes as primary, and 
his tendency is to refer all instincts to the same source. 
“ Every bird,” he says, ‘“‘ must, from the first time it hatches its 
eggs, draw the conclusion that young will also be produced 
from the eggs which it lays afterwards, and this experience 
must have been inherited as instinct.” Why, in the first 
instance, it must draw the conclusion from observation if it 
inherit instinctive knowledge, is not made clear. But our 
present purpose is to indicate, not to criticize, Himer’s position. 
He claims that “‘the original progenitors of the cuckoo, when 
they began to lay their eggs in other nests, acted by reflection 
and design.” Of the behaviour of mason wasps and their allies, 
which provide their young with paralyzed but living prey, he 
exclaims, “ What a wonderful contrivance! What calculation 
on the part of the animal must have been necessary to discover 
it!’ Of the instincts of neuter bees he remarks, “ Selection 
cannot here have had much influence, since the workers do not 
reproduce. In order to make these favourable conditions 
constant, insight and reflection on the part of the animals, and 
the inheritance of these faculties were necessary.” And he 
concludes, ‘‘ Thus, according to the preceding considerations, 
automatic action may be described as habitual voluntary 
action ; instinct, as inherited habitual voluntary action, or 
the capacity for such action.” 
Turning now to the opposite end of the scale of opinion, 
we find that Professor Weismann, commenting on the supposed 
inheritance of acquired habit, says,* “I believe that this is an 
entirely erroneous view, and I hold that all instinct is entirely 
due to the operation of natural selection, and has its founda- 
tion, not upon inherited experiences, but upon variation of 
the germ.” Ziegler and Groos in Germany, Whitman and 
Baldwin in America, Poulton and Wallace in England, either 
deny the existence of secondary instincts, due to'the inheritance 
of acquired habits, or question the sufficiency of the evidence 
* «Essays on Heredity ” (1889), p. 91. 
