62 Luck, or Cunning? 
letter written by Mr. Darwin in the last year of his life, in 
which he speaks of an intelligent action gradually becoming 
“ instinctive, i.e., memory transmitted from one generation 
to another.”’* 
Briefly, the stages of Mr. Darwin’s opinion upon the 
subject of hereditary memory are as follows :— 
1859. “It would be the most serious error to suppose 
that the greater number of instincts have been acquired 
by habit in one generation and transmitted by inheritance 
to succeeding generations.”t And this more especially 
applies to the instincts of many ants. 
1876. ‘ It would be a serious error to suppose,” &c., as 
before. { 
1881. ‘“‘ We should remember what a mass of inherited 
knowledge is crowded into the minute brain of a worker 
ant.’’§ 
188x or 1882. Speaking of a given habitual action Mr. 
Darwin writes: “‘ It does not seem to me at all incredible 
that this action [and why this more than any other habitual 
action ?] should then become instinctive :” 7.¢., memory 
transmitted from one generation to another.|| 
And yet in 1839, or thereabouts, Mr. Darwin had pretty 
nearly grasped the conception from which until the last 
year or two of his life he so fatally strayed ; for in his 
contribution to the volumes giving an account of the voyages 
of the Adventure and Beagle, he wrote: “ Nature by 
making habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary, has 
fitted the Fuegian for the climate and productions of his 
country ”’ (p. 237). 
What is the secret of the long departure from the simple 
* “ Mental Evolution in Animals,’”’ p. 301. November, 1883. 
t ‘‘ Origin of Species,” ed. i. p. 209. 
$ Ibid., ed. vi., 1876, p. 206. 
§ ‘‘ Formation of Vegetable Mould,” etc., p. 98. 
[| Quoted by Mr. Romanes as written in the last year of Mr. 
Darwin’s life. 
