"If it does not remain perfectly invariable, at least it only varies
within very narrow limits; and though this question has been warmly
debated in our day and is yet unsettled, we may yet say that in instinct
immutability is the law, variation the exception."
This is quite as it should be. Genius will occasionally rise a little
above convention, but with an old convention immutability will be the
rule.
"Such," continues M. Ribot, "are the admitted characters of instinct."
Yes; but are they not also the admitted characters of habitual actions
that are due to memory?
* * * * *
M. Ribot says a little further on: "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.
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