In the case of predatory insects, therefore, the instinct must be _perfect at the outset_, or survival is impossible. For the origin of such instincts, Darwinism, which stresses the _gradualness_ of evolutionary progress, has no explanation that will hold water. Lamarckism, which sees in _acquired habits_ transmitted by inheritance, the origin of instinct, the “memory of the race,” is equally at a loss to account for these instincts. The formation of habits requires _practice_ and _repetition_. The predatory insect must be perfect at the start, and yet it only exercises its remarkable instinct _once a year_. Where is the practice and reiteration requisite for canalizing its nervous system into the conduction-paths of habit? How did one particular set of rarely performed acts happen to gain precedence over all others, and to be alone successful in stamping themselves indelibly upon the nerve plasm as habits, and upon the germ plasm as instincts? De-Vriesianism, which would make the acquisition and perfecting of instinct dependent upon the rare and accidental contingency of a _fortuitous mutation_, is even more objectionable. These instincts are vital to the insect. If their acquisition and improvement depend upon the lucky chance of a series of favorable mutations, its prospects of survival are nil; for it cannot afford to wait at all. “In order to live,” says Fabre, “we all require the conditions that enable us to live: this is a truth worthy of the famous axioms of La Palice. The predatory insects live by their talent. If they do not possess it to perfection, their race is lost.” (“Bramble Bees,” p. 364.)