268 



SCIENCE. 



sion, to instinct, "organized in the race." Well, but even 

 if this be true, was not the disposition of the progenitors to 

 make the first efforts in the direction of swimming and div- 

 ing, and were not the organs which enabled them to do so, 

 as purely innate as the perfected instinct and the perfected 

 organs of the Dipper of to-day ? Did there ever exist in any 

 former period of the world what, so far as I know, does cer- 

 tainly not exist now — any animal with dispositions to enter 

 on a new career, thought of and imagined for the first time 

 by itself, unconnected with any organs already fitted for 

 and appropriate to the purpose ? Even the highest ac- 

 quirements of the Dog, under highly artificial conditions of 

 existence, and under the guidance of persistent "interfer- 

 ences with Nature," are nothing but the special education 

 of original instincts. In the almost human caution of the 

 old and well-trained pointer when approaching game, we 

 see simply a development of the habit of all predator)- ani- 

 mals to pause when close upon an unseen prey — a pause 

 requisite to verify the intimations of smell by the sense of 

 sight, and also for preparing the final spring. It is true 

 that Man " selects," but he can only select out of what is 

 already there. The training and direction which he gives 

 to the promptings of instinct may properly be described as 

 the result of experience in the animal under instruction ; 

 and it is undoubtedly true that, within certain limits (which, 

 however, are after all very narrow), these results do tend to 

 become hereditary. But there is nothing really analogous 

 in Nature to the artificial processes of training to which Man 

 subjects the animals which are capable ol domestication. 

 Or if there be anything analogous — if animals by themselves 

 can school themselves by gradual effort into the develop- 

 ment of new powers — if the habits and powers which are 

 now purely innate and instinctive were once less innate 

 and more deliberate — then it will follow that the earlier 

 faculties of animals have been the higher, and that the 

 later faculties are the lower, in the scale of intelligence. 

 This is hardly consistent with the idea of evolution, — 

 which is founded on the conception of an unfold- 

 ing or development from the lower to the higher, from the 

 simple to the complex, from the instinctive to the rational. 

 My own belief is, that whatever of truth there is in the doc- 

 trine of evolution is to be found in this conception, which, 

 so far as we can see, does seem to be embodied in the his- 

 tory of organic life. I can therefore see no light in this 

 new explanation to account for the existence of instincts 

 which are certainly antecedent to all individual experience 

 — the explanation, namely, that they are due to the experi- 

 ence of progenitors "organized in the race." It involves 

 assumptions contrary to the analogies of Nature, and at 

 variance with the fundamental facts, which are the best, and 

 indeed the only, basis of the theory of evolution. There is 

 no probability — there is hardly any plausibility- — in the sup- 

 position that experience has had, in past times, some con- 

 nection with instinct which it has ceased to have in the 

 present day. The uniformity of Nature has, indeed, often 

 been asserted in a sense in which it is not true, and used in 

 support of arguments which it will not sustain. All things 

 have certainly not continued as they are since the begin- 

 ning. There was a time when animal Life, and with it ani- 

 mal instincts, began to be. Hut we have no reason what- 

 ever to -Suppose that the nature of instinct then or since has 

 ever been different from its nature now. On the contrary, 

 as we have in existing Nature examples of it in infinite 

 variety, from the very lowest to the very highest forms of 

 organization, and as the same phenomena are everywhere 



nil, we have the best leason to cum hide that, in the 

 past, animal instinct hasewi been what we now see it to 

 be — congenital, innate, anil wholl\ independent of expeii- 

 en< e. 



And, indeed, when we i nine to think about it, we shall 



find that the theorj of experience assumes the pre-existence 

 of the verj powers foi whit h il professes to account. The 

 ven lowest oi tin- fa< ulties bj whit h experience is acquired 



is the facult) of imitation, Hut the desire to imitate must 



instim live as the organs are hereditary by which imi- 

 tation is effi ' ted. Then follow in theii ordei all the higher 

 faculties b) which the lessons of experience are put to- 



gethei SO that what has been in the past is made the basis 

 '■I a nl ii i pat ion as in nlui will be in the I utuie. This is the 



m bj which experience is acquired, and every 



step in that process assumes the pre-existence of menta. 

 tendencies and of mental powers which are purely instinc- 

 tive and innate. To account for instinct by experience is 

 nothing but an Irish bull. It denies the existence of things 

 which are nevertheless assumed in the very terms of the 

 denial : it elevates into a cause that which must in its nature 

 be a consequence, and a consequence, too, of the very cause 

 which is denied. Congenital instincts, and hereditary pow- 

 ers, and pre-established harmonies aie the origin of all ex- 

 perience, and without them no one step in experience could 

 ever be gained. The questions raised when a young Dip- 

 per, which had never before even seen water, dives and 

 swims with perfect ease, are questions which the theor)' of 

 organized experience does not even tend to solve ; on the 

 contrary, it is a theory which leaves those questions pre- 

 cisely where they were, except in so far as it may tend to 

 obscure them by obvious confusions of thought. 



Passing now from explanations which explain nothing, is 

 there any light in the theory that animals are " automata ? " 

 Was my little Dipper a diving machine ? It seems to me 

 that there is at least a glimmer shining through this idea — - 

 a glimmer as of a real light struggling through a thick fog. 

 The fog arises out of the mists of language — the confound- 

 ing and confusion of meanings literal with meanings meta- 

 phorical — the mistaking of partial for complete analogies. 

 " Machine " is the word by which we designate those com- 

 binations of mechanical force which are contrived and put 

 together by Man to do certain things. One essential char- 

 acteristic of them is that they belong to the world of the 

 not-living ; they are destitute of that which we know as 

 Life, and of all the attributes by which it is distin- 

 guished. Machines have no sensibility. When we 

 say of anything that it has been done by a machine, we mean 

 that it has been done by something which is not alive. In 

 this literal signification it is therefore pure nonsense to say 

 that anything living is a machine. It is simply a misappli- 

 cation of language, to the extent of calling one thing; by the 

 name of another thing, and that other so different as to be 

 its opposite or contradictory. There can be no reasoning, 

 no clearing up of truth, unless we keep definite words for 

 definite ideas. Or if the idea to which a given word has 

 been appropriated be a complex idea, and we desire 

 to deal with one element only of the meaning, sepa- 

 rated from the rest, then, indeed, we may continue to use the 

 word for this selected portion of its meaning, provided al- 

 ways that we bear in mind what it is that we are doing. This 

 may be, and often is a, necessary operation, for language is 

 not rich enough to furnish separate words for all the com- 

 plex elements which enterinto ideas apparently very simple ; 

 and so of this word, machine, there is an element in its 

 meaning which is always very important, which in common 

 language is often predominant, and which we may legiti- 

 mately choose to make exclusive of every other. This 

 essential element in our idea of a machine is that its 

 powers, whatever they may be, are derived, and not original. 

 There may be great knowledge in the work done by a ma- 

 chine, but the knowledge is not in it. There maybe great 

 skill, but the skill is not in it ; great foresight, but the fore- 

 sight is not in it ; in short, great exhibition of all the powers 

 of mind, but the mind is not in the machine itself. What- 

 ever it does is done in virtue of its construction, which 

 construction is due to a mind which has designed it for the 

 exhibition of certain powers and the performance of cer- 

 tain functions. These may be very simple, or they may be 

 very complicated, but whether simple or complicated, the 

 whole play of its operations is limited and measured by 

 the intentions of its constructor. If that constructor be 

 himself limited, either in oppoitunitv or knowledge, or in 

 power, there will be a corresponding limitation in the 

 things which he invents and makes. Accordingly, in re- 

 gard to Man, he cannot make a machine which has any of 

 the gifts and the powers of Life. He can construct nothing 

 which has sensibility or consciousness, or any other ol even 

 the lowest attributes of living creatures. And this abso- 

 lute destitution of even apparent originality in a machine — 

 this entire absence of any share of consciousness or of sen- 

 sibility, or of will — is one part of our very conception of it. 

 Hut that other part of our conception of a machine, which 

 consists in its relation to a contriver and constructor, is 

 equally essential, and may, if we choose, be separated from 



