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 ttie 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 predatory 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 of 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. 
Mv 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. But 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 
repeated, we have the best reason to conclude that, in the 
past, animal instinct has ever been what we now see it to 
ire — congenital, innate, and wholly independent of experi- 
ence. 
And, indeed, when we come to think about it, we shall 
find that the theory of experience assumes the pre-existence 
of the very powers for which it professes to account. The 
very lowest of the faculties by which experience is acquired 
is the faculty of imitation. But the desire to imitate must 
be as instinctive as the organs are hereditary by which imi- 
tation is effected. Then follow in their order all the higher 
faculties by which the lessons of experience are put to- 
gether — so that what has been in the past is made the basis 
of anticipation as to what will be in the future. This is the 
essential process by 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 ate 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 theory 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 contradictor} 7 . 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 enter into 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 opportunitv 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 of 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. 
But 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 
