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now in existence; to which he replies, 'What does this prove but that the cats of Egypt five thousand years ago resembled the present race?'—as if five thousand years were but a moment in his scale of time.

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However, in the passage before us we see it acknowledged that Natural Selection has not been brought into play,' an expression which, when closely examined, means really that those animals have not begun to change themselves. Their limbs have not been plastic-a favourite little word with the author, in which is slily condensed the power of self-creation—and so they have not brought Natural Selection into play.

The author finishes his remarks on this part of his subject with the following droll observation: The goose seems to have a singularly inflexible organization.' Natural Selection, then, does not seem to be able to change a goose. That wise animal (for so we must esteem it) thinks it better to adhere to a conservative policy, and to be satisfied with things as they are, having no desire to lapse into a giraffe, a crab, an elephant, or a philosopher.

CHAPTER VI.

NATURAL SELECTION OPERATING IN INSTINCT.

In the Origin of Species there is a chapter dedicated to Instinct, and it is here that we now follow the author.

Instinct, even in its most striking examples, like every thing else in this theory, is to be traced to the operations of Natural Selection. 'Under changed conditions of life it is at least possible that slight modifications of Instinct might be profitable to a species; and if it can be shown that instincts do vary ever so little, then I can see no difficulty in Natural Selection preserving and continually accumulating variations of instinct to any extent that was profitable. It is thus, I believe, that all the most complex and wonderful instincts have originated' (229).

Surely,' says M. Flourens, we cannot take this as meant to be serious: Natural Selection choosing an instinct !

la poésie a ses licences, mais
Celle-ci passe un peu les bornes que j'y mets.'

However, this we are to understand, that according to the theory no animals made their first appearance in the scene of life endowed with peculiar instincts, but acquired them 'by the slow and gradual accumulation of numerous slight, yet profitable, variations' (230). Thus the honey-bee was

not the insect that it now is, with its peculiar polity; nor were the ants what we now know them to be; nor were the beavers distinguished by their architectural capacities; nor did the migratory birds 'know their seasons' for in all those cases, and many more which are the theme of constant admiration, Natural Selection had not been brought into play.'

Of course, then, the animals in the days of their deficiency of instinct, were other creatures than they are now; and as they must have had different habits, their organization must have been different. Take the instance of the spider, admired for the instinct which prompts it to construct its artful web, it could not, when it did not possess that instinct, exercise the faculty of capture, and therefore could not live as a destroyer of insects. It must have been altogether different. The glutinous fluid prepared for the spinners, with which the creature twists its thread of some thousand filaments, could not have existed, nor the sieve-like spinnarets pierced with numerous holes for the exudation of the liquid, which dries the moment it comes in contact with the air. And as the legs of the animal are adapted for its textile labours, these must have been different, and its disposition, appetite, and all its habits unlike what they now are. In other words, it was not then a spider. Neither is it possible to conceive how, through the instrumentality of Natural Selection, it ever could have become a spider, for as such a transformation would be a process requiring thousands of ages, and in the case of complex instincts' millions, the spider-to-be would have derived no benefit from the rudiments of a web, as the web must be what now it is to catch flies; and if we were to concede that by the accumulation of profitable modifications the spinnarets began to grow,

and the viscous liquid to be secreted in the body, of what use would this be to the spider till furnished with the whole apparatus with which it might seize its prey? What advantage would it have been to the creature to have produced an infinitesimal portion of web, without the whole plan the concentric circles, the radii, the foundation cables, and the whole apparatus?

Turn it then as you will, the spider must have been what it is, as soon as it came into existence; it must have had its instincts, its organization, its habits, and its general character contemporaneously. It must have been called into being as a weaver and constructor of an implement to catch insects, or else it would not have been a Spider. It came into the scene fully prepared to sustain its part in nature for the object for which it had been designed : organs, secretion, disposition, and instinct were its dowry, all together, and with one object; and if any one can doubt that it was an animal ordained to repress the redundancy of the insect race, he must either by misfortune or the most resolute perverseness have lost or abandoned the right use of his reason.

And these remarks, mutatis mutandis, will apply to all cases of instinct.

As the stronghold of instinct is with the social animals, it is here that the theory has the boldest achievements to accomplish, and, as we shall see, has dared the most. With the ants and the honey-bee, the existence of neuters is a well-known part of the constitution of their society; and this peculiarity, the groundwork of much of their polity, is thus explained for us: Thus I believe it has been with social insects; a slight modification of structure, or instinct, correlated with the sterile condition of certain mem

bers of the community, has been advantageous to the community; consequently, the fertile males and females of the same community flourished, and transmitted to their fertile offspring a tendency to produce sterile members, having the same modification. And I believe this process has been repeated, until that prodigious amount of difference between the fertile and sterile females of the same species has been produced, which we see in many social insects (260).

If we apply this to the honey-bees, and this must be the most important application, we should remember that their polity and the constitution of their society have specific arrangements, which, if altered or made otherwise than they now are, the community,' as far as we know anything about it, would not exist at all.

If, therefore, at any times all the females were fertile, as the above explanation of the case informs us they once were, then 'the community' did not exist; and to pretend that it existed in some other form than that which now exists, is simply to insist on a fable, and may be dismissed as an idle dream, of which nothing like a proof can possibly be adduced.

Moreover, it is not sufficient to imagine that the neuters were once fertile, for we must also imagine that when the fertile females were transforming themselves into sterile neuters for the benefit of society, that one female was, by a long preconcerted scheme, at the same time prodigiously increasing her fertility in order to become the sole Mother and Queen of the whole hive. But it seems to be an easy matter not only for one individual to increase its fertility to any amount, but for fertile animals to agree to produce, and actually to produce, sterile offspring! the fertile

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