Chapter II 
Mr. Herbert Spencer 
R. HERBERT SPENCER wrote to the Atheneum 
(April 5, 1884), and quoted certain passages from 
the 1855 edition of his “ Principles of Psychology,” ‘* the 
meanings and implications” from which he contended 
were sufficiently clear. The passages he quoted were as 
follows :— 
Though it is manifest that reflex and instinctive sequences 
are not determined by the experiences of the individual 
organism manifesting them, yet there still remains the hypo- 
thesis that they are determined by the experiences of the race 
of organisms forming its ancestry, which by infinite repetition 
in countless successive generations have established these 
sequences as organic relations (p. 526). 
The modified nervous tendencies produced by such new 
habits of life are also bequeathed (p. 526). 
That is to say, the tendencies to certain combinations of 
psychical changes have become organic (p. 527). 
The doctrine that the connections among our ideas are 
determined by experience must, in consistency, be extended 
not only to all the connections established by the accumulated 
experiences of every individual, but to all those established by 
the accumulated experiences of every race (p. 529). 
Here, then, we have one of the simpler forms of instinct 
which, under the requisite conditions, must necessarily be 
established by accumulated experiences (p. 547). 
And manifestly, if the organisation of inner relations, in 
correspondence with outer relations, results from a continual 
registration of experiences, &c. (p. 551). 
On the one hand, Instinct may be regarded as a kind of 
organised memory; on the other hand, Memory may be 
regarded as a kind of incipient instinct (pp. 555-6). 
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