TRANSMISSIBILITY OF FUNCTIONAL MODIFICATIONS 73 



it into the breed by whipping. And something similar will be found 

 to be true in all cases of so-called inheritance of the effects of training. 

 It must not be forgotten what astounding results can be achieved 

 in the individual by training. The elephant is the best example of 

 this, for it only exceptionally breeds in captivity, and all the thousands 

 of ' domesticated ' elephants in India are tamed wild elephants. Yet 

 they are as gentle and docile as the horse, which has been domesticated 

 for thousands of years ; they perform all kinds of tasks with the 

 greatest patience and carefulness, in many cases without being 

 under constant superintendence. They are indeed animals of great 

 intelligence ; they understand what is required of them, and they 

 accommodate themselves readily to new conditions of life. 



The attachment of the dog to its master and to Man generally 

 has often been cited as a proof of the origin of a new instinct by 

 the inheritance of acquired habitude ; but the dog is a sociable animal 

 even in a wild state, and by living in co-operative association with 

 Man it has transferred its sociable affections to him. We find exactly 

 the same thing in the elephant which has been caught wild and 

 tamed. It is particularly emphasized by those who have accompanied 

 animal transports in Africa that the young elephants are wild and 

 malicious towards the blacks who teased and maltreated them, but 

 complaisant and harmless towards the whites who treated them 

 kindly. The attachment of elephants to their keepers and to 

 every one who shows them kindness is famihar enough ; it does not 

 depend on a newly acquired impulse, but on the sociable impulse 

 inherent in the species, which, in the wild state, causes them to live 

 in fairly large companies, and on their inoffensive, timid, and, we 

 may almost say, affectionate disposition. 



Of course it is easy enough to give an imaginative theoretical 

 interpretation of the origin of a new instinct from a newly acquired 

 habit. We have often heard that sailors have found the birds in 

 distant uninhabited islands quite free from fear; they let them- 

 selves be struck down with cudgels without attempting to escape. 

 The extermination of the Dodo three centuries ago is a well- 

 known example of this. Chun, in his magnificent work on the 

 German Deep Sea Expedition of 1898, has recently communicated 

 numerous interesting examples of the indifference of birds towards 

 Man when they have not learned what his presence means: tlms 

 the sea-birds of Kerguelen, penguins, cormorants, gulls, 'kelp- 

 pigeons ' {Chionis), and others, behaved towards Man very much like 

 the tame geese of our poultry yards. Even enormous mammals 

 like the 'sea-elephant,' a seal with a proboscis-like prolongation of 



