For no amount of exercise, or habit, or
volition, in the utterly sterile members of a community could possibly
have affected the structure or instincts of the fertile members, which
alone leave descendants. I am surprised that no one has advanced this
demonstrative case of neuter insects, against the well-known doctrine
of Lamarck.
SUMMARY.
I have endeavoured briefly in this chapter to show that the mental
qualities of our domestic animals vary, and that the variations are
inherited. Still more briefly I have attempted to show that instincts
vary slightly in a state of nature. No one will dispute that instincts
are of the highest importance to each animal. Therefore I can see no
difficulty, under changing conditions of life, in natural selection
accumulating slight modifications of instinct to any extent, in any
useful direction. In some cases habit or use and disuse have probably
come into play. I do not pretend that the facts given in this chapter
strengthen in any great degree my theory; but none of the cases of
difficulty, to the best of my judgment, annihilate it. On the other
hand, the fact that instincts are not always absolutely perfect and
are liable to mistakes;--that no instinct has been produced for the
exclusive good of other animals, but that each animal takes advantage
of the instincts of others;--that the canon in natural history, of
"natura non facit saltum" is applicable to instincts as well as to
corporeal structure, and is plainly explicable on the foregoing views,
but is otherwise inexplicable,--all tend to corroborate the theory of
natural selection.
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