ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION, ETC. 59 



Here, for example, is Mr. Romanes' definition of 

 instinct : — 



" Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported 

 the element of consciousness. The term is therefore 

 a generic one, comprising all those faculties of mind 

 which are concerned in conscious and adaptive action, 

 antecedent to individual experience, without necessary 

 knowledge of the relation between means employed 

 and ends attained, but similarly performed under 

 similar and frequently recurring circumstances by all 

 the individuals of the same species." * 



If Mr. Eomanes would have been content to build 

 frankly upon Professor Hering's foundation, the sound- 

 ness of which he has elsewhere abundantly admitted, 

 he might have said — 



" Instinct is knowledge or habit acquired in past 

 generations — the new generation remembering what 

 happened to it before it parted company with the old. 

 More briefly. Instinct is inherited memory." Then he 

 might have added as a rider — 



" If a habit is acquired as a new one, during any 

 given lifetime, it is not an instinct. If having been 

 acquired in one lifetime it is transmitted to offspring, 

 it is an instinct in the offspring though it was not an 

 instinct in the parent. If the habit is transmitted 

 partially, it must be considered as partly instinctive 

 and partly acquired." 



This is easy; it tells people how they may test 

 any action so as to know what they ought to call it; 

 it leaves well alone by avoiding all such debatable 



* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 159. Kegan Paul & Co., 1883. 



