"Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported the element
of consciousness. The term is therefore a generic one, comprising
all those faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious and
adaptive action, antecedent to individual experience, without
necessary knowledge of the relation between means employed and ends
attained, but similarly performed under similar and frequently
recurring circumstances by all the individuals of the same species."
{60a}

If Mr. Romanes would have been content to build frankly upon
Professor Hering's foundation, the soundness of which he has
elsewhere abundantly admitted, he might have said -

"Instinct is knowledge or habit acquired in past generations--the
new generation remembering what happened to it before it parted
company with the old. More briefly, Instinct is inherited memory."
Then he might have added a rider -

"If a habit is acquired as a new one, during any given lifetime, it
is not an instinct. If having been acquired in one lifetime it is
transmitted to offspring, it is an instinct in the offspring, though
it was not an instinct in the parent. If the habit is transmitted
partially, it must be considered as partly instinctive and partly
acquired."

This is easy; it tells people how they may test any action so as to
know what they ought to call it; it leaves well alone by avoiding
all such debatable matters as reflex action, consciousness,
intelligence, purpose, knowledge of purpose. &c.; it both introduces