acquisitions in a more special and individual manner, whereas the
animal receives them ready made, and of a more final, stereotyped
character.

Nevertheless, it is plain we must ascribe both to the brain and body
of the new-born infant a far-reaching power of remembering or
reproducing things which have already come to their development
thousands of times over in the persons of its ancestors. It is in
virtue of this that it acquires proficiency in the actions necessary
for its existence--so far as it was not already at birth proficient
in them--much more quickly and easily than would be otherwise
possible; but what we call instinct in the case of animals takes in
man the looser form of aptitude, talent, and genius. {84} Granted
that certain ideas are not innate, yet the fact of their taking form
so easily and certainly from out of the chaos of his sensations, is
due not to his own labour, but to that of the brain substance of the
thousands of thousands of generations from whom he is descended.
Theories concerning the development of individual consciousness which
deny heredity or the power of transmission, and insist upon an
entirely fresh start for every human soul, as though the infinite
number of generations that have gone before us might as well have
never lived for all the effect they have had upon ourselves,--such
theories will contradict the facts of our daily experience at every
touch and turn.

The brain processes and phenomena of consciousness which ennoble man
in the eyes of his fellows have had a less ancient history than those
connected with his physical needs. Hunger and the reproductive
instinct affected the oldest and simplest forms of the organic world.
It is in respect of these instincts, therefore, and of the means to