A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.
Progress is a general law of Nature, and the comparative study of Evolution proves that the tendency to improvement increases with the advance to higher planes of development. Among the lowest organisms the rate of progress is hardly appreciable. The sea shells of the Devonian period can scarcely be distinguished from the shells of our present seas. The balls of amber found on the shores of the Baltic often contain the mummies of insects closely resembling certain species of latter-day flies and beetles, while the horse, the zebra, and other modern varieties of the equine genus, have developed from a creature not much larger than a fox. The Neanderthal skull proves that the heads of our early ancestors were almost ape-like in their protruding jaws and flatness of cranium. The lower animals adhere to inherited habits with a persistency that has often proved their ruin by diminishing their ability of adapting themselves to change of circumstances, as in the case of that sea-lizard of the South sea islands, where its ancestors had for ages managed to escape their only enemies by leaving the water and crawling up the beach, and where their modern descendants persist in crawling landward in the hope of escaping from dogs and hunters.
The higher animals, on the other hand, rarely fail to profit by lessons of experience. Trappers know [[222]]that the contrivances for capturing wild animals have to be changed from time to time, the older methods being apt to lose their efficacy after the fate of a certain number of victims has warned their relatives. Old rats have been seen driving their young from a dish of arsenic-poisoned gruel. Deer, foxes, and wild turkeys learn to avoid the favorite trails of the hunter; monkeys, on their first arrival in a cold climate, impatiently tear off the jackets or shawls furnished by the kindness of their keeper, but soon learn to appreciate the advantage of artificial teguments, and even try to increase their stock of wardrobe by appropriating every stray piece of cloth they can lay their hands on.
The instinct of adaptation to the conditions of progress has asserted itself both among modern and very ancient nations, though during the mental bondage of the Middle Ages its manifestations were systematically suppressed by the conservatism of religious bigots. Savages show an almost apish eagerness in adopting the habits, fashions, and foibles of civilization. The political institutions of primitive nations are very elastic. The Grecian republics were not only willing but anxious to improve their laws by abolishing abuses and testing amendments. In ancient Rome every general assembly of freemen exercised the functions of a legislative council; legislative reforms were proposed by private citizens and were often carried by acclamation, like the edict for the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the resolution revoking the exile of Cicero. [[223]]