INTELLECTUAL ACQUIREMENTS.--Not to depend on such evidence, however, he adduces that of a very different character, namely, the non-transmission of intellectual acquirements. Language is an example. Although human beings have been communicating their thoughts to each other from very ancient times by speech, yet every child has to learn how to do this for itself. No matter how many languages the parents master, their children have to go over all the ground the parents did, make all the toil and effort to learn to speak. The children of the most gifted linguists, if brought up without coming in contact with those who can teach them to talk, will never learn a single word. There are, it is claimed, a few cases on record of children who never acquired their natural tongue because they had lived among animals and not among human beings. They learned to make the same vocal sounds the animals did, no more. The environment in this case was everything, the parental acquirements nothing. Music, like language, is also an acquired character, and it is probably not transmitted. Our musical geniuses are not the children of great musicians, but in most cases the reverse. They seem to spring into existence from lowly sources, or at least from parents whose advantages for a musical education have been very limited, though generally they have had good health, and a climatic environment of a favorable kind. Great musical talent usually dies out in any family in a few generations, no matter how much it is cultivated, or, if it does not die out entirely, it becomes mediocre; and yet the opportunities of the children of great musicians, and the ambition of their parents for its culture, are usually very favorable. INSTINCT.--In accepting the theory of the non-transmission of acquired characters, it becomes necessary to give up prevailing views of the origin of instinct. According to the old belief it was a gift of God, and not acquired by any effort on the part of its possessor. In speaking of the instinct of bees, Sidney Smith says: "_Providence has done it._ There are the bees, there is the comb, and the honey, get rid of it or find some other explanation if you can." The early evolutionists changed all this, and made instinct the inheritance of an oft-repeated act. The young kitten, as soon as old enough, hunts for a mouse and catches it without any training. The sight of the mouse acts on its nervous system in such a way as to compel it to creep up softly, jump on it, toy and play with it, and finally kill and eat it. It would have required long practice on the part of its ancestors before so wonderful a character could have become fixed. The same is true of the setter dog.