Part 10 (1/2)
”All seems directed by thought.”
Yes; because all HAS BEEN in earlier existences directed by thought.
”Without ever arriving at thought.”
Because it has GOT PAST THOUGHT, and though ”directed by thought”
originally, is now travelling in exactly the opposite direction. It is not likely to reach thought again, till people get to know worse and worse how to do things, the oftener they practise them.
”And if this phenomenon appear strange, it must be observed that a.n.a.logous states occur in ourselves. ALL THAT WE DO FROM HABIT-- WALKING, WRITING, OR PRACTISING A MECHANICAL ACT, FOR INSTANCE--ALL THESE AND MANY OTHER VERY COMPLEX ACTS ARE PERFORMED WITHOUT CONSCIOUSNESS.
”Instinct appears stationary. It does not, like intelligence, seem to grow and decay, to gain and to lose. It does not improve.”
Naturally. For improvement can only as a general rule be looked for along the line of latest development, that is to say, in matters concerning which the creature is being still consciously exercised.
Older questions are settled, and the solution must be accepted as final, for the question of living at all would be reduced to an absurdity, if everything decided upon one day was to be undecided again the next; as with painting or music, so with life and politics, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind, for decision with wrong will be commonly a better policy than indecision--I had almost added with right; and a firm purpose with risk will be better than an infirm one with temporary exemption from disaster. Every race has made its great blunders, to which it has nevertheless adhered, inasmuch as the corresponding modification of other structures and instincts was found preferable to the revolution which would be caused by a radical change of structure, with consequent havoc among a legion of vested interests. Rudimentary organs are, as has been often said, the survivals of these interests--the signs of their peaceful and gradual extinction as living faiths; they are also instances of the difficulty of breaking through any cant or trick which we have long practised, and which is not sufficiently troublesome to make it a serious object with us to cure ourselves of the habit.
”If it does not remain perfectly invariable, at least it only varies within very narrow limits; and though this question has been warmly debated in our day, and is yet unsettled, we may yet say that in instinct immutability is the law, variation the exception.”
This is quite as it should be. Genius will occasionally rise a little above convention, but with an old convention immutability will be the rule.
”Such,” continues M. Ribot, ”are the admitted characters of instinct.”
Yes; but are they not also the admitted characters of actions that are due to memory?
At the bottom of p. 15, M. Ribot quotes the following from Mr.
Darwin:-
”We have reason to believe that aboriginal habits are long retained under domestication. Thus with the common a.s.s, we see signs of its original desert-life in its strong dislike to cross the smallest stream of water, and in its pleasure in rolling in the dust. The same strong dislike to cross a stream is common to the camel which has been domesticated from a very early period. Young pigs, though so tame, sometimes squat when frightened, and then try to conceal themselves, even in an open and bare place. Young turkeys, and occasionally even young fowls, when the hen gives the danger-cry, run away and try to hide themselves, like young partridges or pheasants, in order that their mother may take flight, of which she has lost the power. The musk duck in its native country often perches and roosts on trees, and our domesticated musk ducks, though sluggish birds, are fond of perching on the tops of barns, walls, &c. . . . We know that the dog, however well and regularly fed, often buries like the fox any superfluous food; we see him turning round and round on a carpet as if to trample down gra.s.s to form a bed. . . . In the delight with which lambs and kids crowd together and frisk upon the smallest hillock we see a vestige of their former alpine habits.”
What does this delightful pa.s.sage go to show, if not that the young in all these cases must still have a latent memory of their past existences, which is called into an active condition as soon as the a.s.sociated ideas present themselves?
Returning to M. Ribot's own observations, we find he tells us that it usually requires three or four generations to fix the results of training, and to prevent a return to the instincts of the wild state.
I think, however, it would not be presumptuous to suppose that if an animal after only three or four generations of training be restored to its original conditions of life, it will forget its intermediate training and return to its old ways, almost as readily as a London street Arab would forget the beneficial effects of a weeks training in a reformatory school, if he were then turned loose again on the streets. So if we hatch wild ducks' eggs under a tame duck, the ducklings ”will have scarce left the egg-sh.e.l.l when they obey the instincts of their race and take their flight.” So the colts from wild horses, and mongrel young between wild and domesticated horses, betray traces of their earlier memories.
On this M. Ribot says: ”Originally man had considerable trouble in taming the animals which are now domesticated; and his work would have been in vain had not heredity” (memory) ”come to his aid. It may be said that after man has modified a wild animal to his will, there goes on in its progeny a silent conflict between two heredities” (memories), ”the one tending to fix the acquired modifications and the other to preserve the primitive instincts. The latter often get the mastery, and only after several generations is training sure of victory. But we may see that in either case heredity” (memory) ”always a.s.serts its rights.”
How marvellously is the above pa.s.sage elucidated and made to fit in with the results of our recognised experience, by the simple subst.i.tution of the word ”memory” for ”heredity.”
”Among the higher animals”--to continue quoting--”which are possessed not only of instinct, but also of intelligence, nothing is more common than to see mental dispositions, which have evidently been acquired, so fixed by heredity, that they are confounded with instinct, so spontaneous and automatic do they become. Young pointers have been known to point the first time they were taken out, sometimes even better than dogs that had been for a long time in training. The habit of saving life is hereditary in breeds that have been brought up to it, as is also the shepherd dog's habit of moving around the flock and guarding it.”
As soon as we have grasped the notion, that instinct is only the epitome of past experience, revised, corrected, made perfect, and learnt by rote, we no longer find any desire to separate ”instinct”
from ”mental dispositions, which have evidently been acquired and fixed by heredity,” for the simple reason that they are one and the same thing.
A few more examples are all that my limits will allow--they abound on every side, and the difficulty lies only in selecting--M. Ribot being to hand, I will venture to lay him under still further contributions.
On page 19 we find:- ”Knight has shown experimentally the truth of the proverb, 'a good hound is bred so,' he took every care that when the pups were first taken into the field, they should receive no guidance from older dogs; yet the very first day, one of the pups stood trembling with anxiety, having his eyes fixed and all his muscles strained AT THE PARTRIDGES WHICH THEIR PARENTS HAD BEEN TRAINED TO POINT. A spaniel belonging to a breed which had been trained to woodc.o.c.k-shooting, knew perfectly well from the first how to act like an old dog, avoiding places where the ground was frozen, and where it was, therefore, useless to seek the game, as there was no scent. Finally, a young polecat terrier was thrown into a state of great excitement the first time he ever saw one of these animals, while a spaniel remained perfectly calm.
”In South America, according to Roulin, dogs belonging to a breed that has long been trained to the dangerous chase of the peccary, when taken for the first time into the woods, know the tactics to adopt quite as well as the old dogs, and that without any instruction. Dogs of other races, and unacquainted with the tactics, are killed at once, no matter how strong they may be. The American greyhound, instead of leaping at the stag, attacks him by the belly, and throws him over, as his ancestors had been trained to do in hunting the Indians.
”Thus, then, heredity transmits modification no less than natural instincts.”