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 asserts its rights.”
How marvellously is the above passage elucidated and made to fit in with the results of our recognised experience, by the simple substitution 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 woodcock-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.”
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.”