PSYCHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE 183

were once performed with deliberate purpose, but which are

now carried on without advertence by unconscious auto-

matism. According to this view, instinctive actions would

be comparable with such acts as playing, without attention,

airs to learn to play which laborious, conscious attention

was originally required. But here the same objections apply

as can be urged against Montaigne's hypothesis. It may

well be asked, could an adult female insect be supposed

to foresee the future needs of her first progeny, often so

totally different from her own wants ; or recollect her past

experiences as a chrysalis and as a grub, from the moment

she first quitted the egg? Not less absurd would it be to

suppose that the grub of a male stag-beetle ever deliberately

reasoned out the need of making his chrysalis bed twice

his own size, on account of the jaws he is destined to grow,

but which he not only has not, but has never seen in adult

individuals of his own species !

Lastly, the late Mr. Darwin has tried to explain instinct

as being partly due to intelligent, purposive action which

has become inherited, partly to the occurrence of accidental

variations of activity, which have been preserved by " Natural

Selection."

As to the former part of the explanation, the objections

we have already made to an intelligent origin of instinct

may, we think, suffice. Moreover, this explanation assumes

the truth of the proposition that acquired characters may be

inherited. As to the other part of the explanation, let us

look at one or two noteworthy instincts, and see if it is

credible that they should be due to accidental, haphazard

changes in habits already acquired.

Can we conceive that the duck which feigns an injured

wing that she may entice a dog away from her young brood,

can ever have come to do so by pure accident any more than

by deliberate intention? Again, there is the case of the

were once performed with deliberate purpose, but which are

now carried on without advertence by unconscious auto-

matism. According to this view, instinctive actions would

be comparable with such acts as playing, without attention,

airs to learn to play which laborious, conscious attention

was originally required. But here the same objections apply

as can be urged against Montaigne's hypothesis. It may

well be asked, could an adult female insect be supposed

to foresee the future needs of her first progeny, often so

totally different from her own wants ; or recollect her past

experiences as a chrysalis and as a grub, from the moment

she first quitted the egg? Not less absurd would it be to

suppose that the grub of a male stag-beetle ever deliberately

reasoned out the need of making his chrysalis bed twice

his own size, on account of the jaws he is destined to grow,

but which he not only has not, but has never seen in adult

individuals of his own species !

Lastly, the late Mr. Darwin has tried to explain instinct

as being partly due to intelligent, purposive action which

has become inherited, partly to the occurrence of accidental

variations of activity, which have been preserved by " Natural

Selection."

As to the former part of the explanation, the objections

we have already made to an intelligent origin of instinct

may, we think, suffice. Moreover, this explanation assumes

the truth of the proposition that acquired characters may be

inherited. As to the other part of the explanation, let us

look at one or two noteworthy instincts, and see if it is

credible that they should be due to accidental, haphazard

changes in habits already acquired.

Can we conceive that the duck which feigns an injured

wing that she may entice a dog away from her young brood,

can ever have come to do so by pure accident any more than

by deliberate intention? Again, there is the case of the