Part 10 (2/2)
Should not this rather be--”thus, then, we see that not only older and remoter habits, but habits which have been practised for a comparatively small number of generations, may be so deeply impressed on the individual that they may dwell in his memory, surviving the so-called change of personality which he undergoes in each successive generation”?
”There is, however, an important difference to be noted: the heredity of instincts admits of no exceptions, while in that of modifications there are many.”
It may be well doubted how far the heredity of instincts admits of no exceptions; on the contrary, it would seem probable that in many races geniuses have from time to time arisen who remembered not only their past experiences, as far as action and habit went, but have been able to rise in some degree above habit where they felt that improvement was possible, and who carried such improvement into further practice, by slightly modifying their structure in the desired direction on the next occasion that they had a chance of dealing with protoplasm at all. It is by these rare instances of intellectual genius (and I would add of moral genius, if many of the instincts and structures of plants and animals did not show that they had got into a region as far above morals--other than enlightened self-interest--as they are above articulate consciousness of their own aims in many other respects)--it is by these instances of either rare good luck or rare genius that many species have been, in all probability, originated or modified. Nevertheless inappreciable modification of instinct is, and ought to be, the rule.
As to M. Ribot's a.s.sertion, that to the heredity of modifications there are many exceptions, I readily agree with it, and can only say that it is exactly what I should expect; the lesson long since learnt by rote, and repeated in an infinite number of generations, would be repeated unintelligently, and with little or no difference, save from a rare accidental slip, the effect of which would be the culling out of the bungler who was guilty of it, or from the still rarer appearance of an individual of real genius; while the newer lesson would be repeated both with more hesitation and uncertainty, and with more intelligence; and this is well conveyed in M. Ribot's next sentence, for he says--”It is only when variations have been firmly rooted; when having become organic, they const.i.tute a second nature, which supplants the first; when, like instinct, they have a.s.sumed a mechanical character, that they can be transmitted.”
How nearly M. Ribot comes to the opinion which I myself venture to propound will appear from the following further quotation. After dealing with somnambulism, and saying, that if somnambulism were permanent and innate, it would be impossible to distinguish it from instinct, he continues:-
”Hence it is less difficult than is generally supposed, to conceive how intelligence may become instinct; we might even say that, leaving out of consideration the character of innateness, to which we will return, we have seen the metamorphosis take place. THERE CAN THEN BE NO GROUND FOR MAKING INSTINCT A FACULTY APART, sui generis, a phenomenon so mysterious, so strange, that usually no other explanation of it is offered but that of attributing it to the direct act of the Deity. This whole mistake is the result of a defective psychology which makes no account of the unconscious activity of the soul.”
We are tempted to add--”and which also makes no account of the bona fide character of the continued personality of successive generations.”
”But we are so accustomed,” he continues, ”to contrast the characters of instinct with those of intelligence--to say that instinct is innate, invariable, automatic, while intelligence is something acquired, variable, spontaneous--that it looks at first paradoxical to a.s.sert that instinct and intelligence are identical.
”It is said that instinct is innate. But if, on the one hand, we bear in mind that many instincts are acquired, and that, according to a theory hereafter to be explained” (which theory, I frankly confess, I never was able to get hold of), ”ALL INSTINCTS ARE ONLY HEREDITARY HABITS” (italics mine); ”if, on the other hand, we observe that intelligence is in some sense held to be innate by all modern schools of philosophy, which agree to reject the theory of the tabula rasa”
(if there is no tabula rasa, there is continued psychological personality, or words have lost their meaning), ”and to accept either latent ideas, or a priori forms of thought” (surely only a periphrasis for continued personality and memory) ”or pre-ordination of the nervous system and of the organism; IT WILL BE SEEN THAT THIS CHARACTER OF INNATENESS DOES NOT CONSt.i.tUTE AN ABSOLUTE DISTINCTION BETWEEN INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE.
”It is true that intelligence is variable, but so also is instinct, as we have seen. In winter, the Rhine beaver plasters his wall to windward; once he was a builder, now a burrower; once he lived in society, now he is solitary. Intelligence itself can scarcely be more variable . . . instinct may be modified, lost, reawakened.
”Although intelligence is, as a rule, conscious, it may also become unconscious and automatic, without losing its ident.i.ty. Neither is instinct always so blind, so mechanical, as is supposed, for at times it is at fault. The wasp that has faultily trimmed a leaf of its paper begins again. The bee only gives the hexagonal form to its cell after many attempts and alterations. It is difficult to believe that the loftier instincts” (and surely, then, the more recent instincts) ”of the higher animals are not accompanied BY AT LEAST A CONFUSED CONSCIOUSNESS. There is, therefore, no absolute distinction between instinct and intelligence; there is not a single characteristic which, seriously considered, remains the exclusive property of either. The contrast established between instinctive acts and intellectual acts is, nevertheless, perfectly true, but only when we compare the extremes. AS INSTINCT RISES IT APPROACHES INTELLIGENCE--AS INTELLIGENCE DESCENDS IT APPROACHES INSTINCT.”
M. Ribot and myself (if I may venture to say so) are continually on the verge of coming to an understanding, when, at the very moment that we seem most likely to do so, we fly, as it were, to opposite poles. Surely the pa.s.sage last quoted should be, ”As instinct falls,” i.e., becomes less and less certain of its ground, ”it approaches intelligence; as intelligence rises,” i.e., becomes more and more convinced of the truth and expediency of its convictions-- ”it approaches instinct.”
Enough has been said to show that the opinions which I am advancing are not new, but I have looked in vain for the conclusions which, it appears to me, M. Ribot should draw from his facts; throughout his interesting book I find the facts which it would seem should have guided him to the conclusions, and sometimes almost the conclusions themselves, but he never seems quite to have reached them, nor has he arranged his facts so that others are likely to deduce them, unless they had already arrived at them by another road. I cannot, however, sufficiently express my obligations to M. Ribot.
I cannot refrain from bringing forward a few more instances of what I think must be considered by every reader as hereditary memory.
Sydney Smith writes:-
”Sir James Hall hatched some chickens in an oven. Within a few minutes after the sh.e.l.l was broken, a spider was turned loose before this very youthful brood; the destroyer of flies had hardly proceeded more than a few inches, before he was descried by one of these oven- born chickens, and, at one peck of his bill, immediately devoured.
This certainly was not imitation. A female goat very near delivery died; Galen cut out the young kid, and placed before it a bundle of hay, a bunch of fruit, and a pan of milk; the young kid smelt to them all very attentively, and then began to lap the milk. This was not imitation. And what is commonly and rightly called instinct, cannot be explained away, under the notion of its being imitation” (Lecture xvii. on Moral Philosophy).
It cannot, indeed, be explained away under the notion of its being imitation, but I think it may well be so under that of its being memory.
Again, a little further on in the same lecture, as that above quoted from, we find:-
”Ants and beavers lay up magazines. Where do they get their knowledge that it will not be so easy to collect food in rainy weather, as it is in summer? Men and women know these things, because their grandpapas and grandmammas have told them so. Ants hatched from the egg artificially, or birds hatched in this manner, have all this knowledge by intuition, without the smallest communication with any of their relations. Now observe what the solitary wasp does; she digs several holes in the sand, in each of which she deposits an egg, though she certainly knows not (?) that an animal is deposited in that egg, and still less that this animal must be nourished with other animals. She collects a few green flies, rolls them up neatly in several parcels (like Bologna sausages), and stuffs one parcel into each hole where an egg is deposited. When the wasp worm is hatched, it finds a store of provision ready made; and what is most curious, the quant.i.ty allotted to each is exactly sufficient to support it, till it attains the period of wasphood, and can provide for itself. This instinct of the parent wasp is the more remarkable as it does not feed upon flesh itself. Here the little creature has never seen its parent; for by the time it is born, the parent is always eaten by sparrows; and yet, without the slightest education, or previous experience, it does everything that the parent did before it. Now the objectors to the doctrine of instinct may say what they please, but young tailors have no intuitive method of making pantaloons; a new-born mercer cannot measure diaper; nature teaches a cook's daughter nothing about sippets. All these things require with us seven years' apprentices.h.i.+p; but insects are like Moliere's persons of quality--they know everything (as Moliere says), without having learnt anything. 'Les gens de qualite savent tout, sans avoir rien appris.'”
How completely all difficulty vanishes from the facts so pleasantly told in this pa.s.sage when we bear in mind the true nature of personal ident.i.ty, the ordinary working of memory, and the vanis.h.i.+ng tendency of consciousness concerning what we know exceedingly well.
My last instance I take from M. Ribot, who writes:- ”Gratiolet, in his Anatomie Comparee du Systeme Nerveux, states that an old piece of wolf's skin, with the hair all worn away, when set before a little dog, threw the animal into convulsions of fear by the slight scent attaching to it. The dog had never seen a wolf, and we can only explain this alarm by the hereditary transmission of certain sentiments, coupled with a certain perception of the sense of smell”
(”Heredity,” p. 43).
I should prefer to say ”we can only explain the alarm by supposing that the smell of the wolf's skin”--the sense of smell being, as we all know, more powerful to recall the ideas that have been a.s.sociated with it than any other sense--”brought up the ideas with which it had been a.s.sociated in the dog's mind during many previous existences”-- he on smelling the wolf's skin remembering all about wolves perfectly well.
CHAPTER XII--INSTINCTS OF NEUTER INSECTS
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