Habit and instinct / by C. Lloyd Morgan.

  • C. Lloyd Morgan
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Habit and instinct / by C. Lloyd Morgan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    346/402 page 332
    direct evidence; and the structural question * does not call for discussion here. It would seem, then, that of acquired habit passing into congenital instinct of demonstrable definiteness, there is but little, if any, reliable evidence of a crucial kind. We must therefore turn to the other aspect of heredity —that which has reference to innate power or faculty— and must ask whether there is any such marked increase of inborn capacity as may reasonably be attributed to direct transmission of acquired increments of faculty. It must here be remembered that innate capacity affords to the individual what is at first a relatively unspecialized power of dealing with the particular conditions of indi- vidual life as they are presented to experience. The amount and quality of this innate capacity unquestionably varies in different individuals. Its specialization and the particular mode of its application are determined by the conditions of individual development, and the environment to which there is need of adaptation. This serves to dis- tinguish innate capacity, the definite application of which is acquired in the course of individual life, from the con- genitally determined adaptiveness of instinctive behaviour. The distinction was illustrated in our introductory chapter by an analogy drawn from the familiar facts of the inheri- tance of wealth. That which is instinctive was likened to the inheritance of specific drafts for particular and relatively definite purposes in the conduct of life, over the initial application of which the individual is given no control; innate capacity to the inheritance of a legacy which may be drawn upon for any purpose as need arises. * Dr. Gustav Retzius has shown (“ Biologishe Untersuchungen,” neue Folge, vii. 1895) that the modifications of structure due to civilized habit (e.g. the use of chairs) are not inherited, the foetus retaining the ancestral condition. His arguments for transmission of habit appear to take little account of the effects of tradition.
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