IX. THE EXISTENCE OF INSTINCT.

THERE is a large department of animal actions having their origin in what we call instinct, and the existence of instinct creates a very great difficulty to the adoption of the theory of evolution.

Instinct has been defined as a

special internal impulse, urging animals to the performance of certain actions which are useful to them or to their kind, but the use of which they do not themselves perceive, and their performance of which is a necessary consequence of their being placed in certain circumstances.*

Instinctive actions are not due to mechanical or chemical causes, nor to the intelligence, experience, or will, as has been shown by M. Lemoine.† He points out that these actions, which take place with a general fixity and precision, are generally present in all the individuals of each species, and can be perfectly performed the very first time their actions are called for. Very plainly, therefore, instinct cannot in any sense be due to

* Todd's Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. iii., p. 3. + L'Habitude et l'Instinct, Ballière, Paris, 1875.

habit, and instinctive action is not performed more easily the millionth time than it is the first.

There is no intelligence involved, for, in the first place, the use of an instinctive action is not perceived by him who performs it, nor does he choose the method of its performance; and there are some instances in which if the animal had choice he would certainly not perform that action to which he is impelled by instinct. A new-born babe exerts no intelligence in sucking and swallowing the first time those acts are performed; and, of course, it is not then assisted by habit. It is not denied that habits may be inherited; it is only affirmed that there are instinctive actions which cannot be habits. The theory of lapsed intelligence cannot account for the instinctive actions going on at present under our eyes, both in ourselves and in other animals. This theory assumes that wasps, bees, ants, and other animals once exercised a conscious, deliberate, discriminating faculty in their performance of the actions which we call instinct. It would be a violent supposition that a female instinc

tively foresees what would be the first necessity of her new offspring when those necessities are so different from her own, or that she has carried a remembrance of what was her first necessity the instant she came into

conscious existence.

In regard to "natural selection," all that Mr. Darwin has done has been to show change of instincts already acquired. This puts us only a step back; it does not account for the origin of instinct, where the whole weight of our argument lies.

Mr. Mivart,* in speaking of the theory that some action was performed instantly, and this inherited, brings forward the following case:

There is the case of the wasp, sphex, which stings spiders, caterpillars, and grasshoppers exactly in the spot, or spots, where their ganglia lie, and so paralyzes them. Even the strongest advocate of the intelligence of insects would not affirm that the mother sphex has a knowledge of the comparative anatomy of the nervous system of these very diversely formed insects. According to the doctrine of natural selec

* In an article entitled Organic Nature's Riddle, Fortnightly Review, 1885.