The Dying Huanaco, 
319 
— it is not tbe only useless instinct we know of : 
there are many others, both simple and complex ; 
and of such instincts we believe, with good reason, 
that they once played an important part in the life 
of the species, and were only rendered useless by 
changes in the condition of life, or in the organism, 
or in both. In other words, when the special 
conditions that gave them value no longer existed, 
the correlated and perfect instinct was not, in these 
cases, eradicated, but remained in abeyance and 
still capable of being called into activity by a new 
and false stimulus simulating the old and true. 
Viewed in this way, the huanaco’ s instinct might 
be regarded as something remaining to the animal 
from a remote past, not altogether unaffected by 
time perhaps ; and like some ceremonial usage among 
men that has long ceased to have any significance, 
or like a fragment of ancient history, or a tradition, 
which in the course of time has received some new 
and false interpretation. The false interpretation, 
to continue the metaphor, is, in this case, that the 
'purpose of the animal in going to a certain spot, to 
which it has probably never previously resorted, is 
to die there. A false interpretation, because, in 
the first place, it is incredible that an instinct of no 
advantage to the species in its struggle for existence 
and predominance should arise and become per- 
manent; and, in the second place, it is equally 
incredible that it could ever have been to the 
advantage of the species or race to have a dying 
place. We must, then, suppose that there is in 
the sensations preceding death, when death comes 
slowly, some resemblance to the sensations experi- 
