Nevertheless, persuaded as I am that “lapsed intelligence” will not explain “instinct” generally, I should be the last to deny that certain apparently instinctive actions may be so explained, and I fully admit that intelligent action in ourselves does tend to become practically though not really instinctive. It is, moreover, very fortunate for us that such is the case, as thereby we are saved great mental friction. Our intellect has first to be laboriously applied to learn what afterwards becomes almost automatic, as the actions of reading, writing, etc. Sensations and bodily actions having been duly kneaded together, the intellect becomes free to withdraw and apply itself to other work—fresh conquests of mere animality—leaving the organism to carry on automatically the new faculties thus acquired. Were it not for this power which we have of withdrawing our attention, our intellect would be absorbed and wasted in the merest routine work, instead of being set free to appropriate and render practically instinctive, a continually wider and more important range of deliberate purposive actions. We come now to the sixth and last attempt to explain instinct, namely, Mr. Darwin’s attempt. He has recognised the futility of seeking to explain many instinctive actions in any of the modes we have yet considered, and he has proposed, as before said, to explain such residual instinctive phenomena by the play of natural selection, _i.e._ of the destructive forces of nature upon small, accidental abnormalities of action on the part of individuals of a species; such abnormalities, when favorable to the existence of the individual, being preserved and perpetuated by the destruction of the other individuals of the same species who adhered to their ancestral tendencies. But this proposed explanation is not an explanation of the _origin_ of instincts, but only of the changes and transformations of instincts already acquired. But putting back the date or modifying the form of the original instinct, in no way alters the essential nature of instincts or diminishes its mystery. Let us look at one or two strong cases of instinct, and see if it is credible that they should be due to mere accidental, haphazard, minute changes in habits already acquired. In the first place, there is the wonderful instinct of the duck, which feigns to have an injured wing, in order to entice a dog away from the pursuit of her ducklings. Is it conceivable that such an act was first done by pure accident, and that the descendants of her who so acted, having inherited the tendency, have been alone selected and preserved? Again, there is the case of the wasp, sphex, which stings spiders, caterpillars, and grasshoppers exactly in the spot, or spots, where their nervous ganglia lie, and so paralyses them. Even the strongest advocate of the intelligence of insects would not affirm that the mother sphex has a knowledge of the comparative anatomy of the