The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1905-11-14
INSTINCT OF THE INSECT.
Mystery of Presence in Beings That
Live Only Short Time.
Literary Digest.


Literary Digest.
According to the theory that IN
stinct is inherited experience, 1t is
difficult to see why insects that live
only few weeks. or months should
have anv instincts at all, since the
time in which they may accumulate
experience is so limited. But Ed
mond Perrier, an advocate of this
theory, shows US that we may recon-
cile it with these facts by supposing
that the original experience, of which
the instinct of insects is THE successor
by hereditary transmission, was &C
quired by their ancestors ages ago.
when they lived longer and had time
to learn. Of this ingenious theory
M. A. Latour says in La Nature:
The progress made recently IN bfle
study of the nervous system led Ed
nrond Perrier to a new theory OF IN
stinct, regarding which philosophers
will probably be somewhat skept1cal
but of which a geological conse-
ouence deserves to be known tor its
ingenuity. The author is endeavorlng
to explain by means of experience and
heredity alone how insects whose
adult life lasts only a few weeks, or
even a few days, and who know moth
ing of their parentage, have THE time
and the ability to acquire their won
derful instincts. Evidently there is mo
possibility here of education nor Gus
toms; it would seem as if the nanites-
tation of instinct in the individual
were quite spontaneous.
"But NJ. Perrier notes that the ex-
istence of the seasons, as we know
them, appears to be of very recent
geological origin. Biologists in gen.
era1 agree that temperature & climate
were once, for very long periods, ab-
solutely uniform in all parts OF the
earth and throughout the whole year.
This is explained by the fact that the
sun was then much larger, the ine-
qualities of the seasons having been
brought about, little by little, by its
gradual condensation Now, insects
existed at a time when this condensa-
tion had not yet taken place. In
sects were remarkably abundant on
the carboniferous lakes or lagoons,
and the interesting discoveries OF
Messrs. Fayol and Charles Bron-
giart at Gonlmentry have shown how
great was their variety and how huge
their size at that time.
"Now, since there were then no sea-
sons-1he cause that now brings about
the early death of insects so soon al
ter their reDroduction-these carbon
;ferous insects must have lived as long
as any other creatures; they must
have able, like our higher animals, to
acquire experience and transmit 1t to
their offspring, thus gaining an &C
o1ired and cultivated intelligence IN
the same measure as other living be-
ings. This was then transmitted by
heredity, and when the seasons be-
gan to appear, in the tertiary epodh'
when by the appearance Of cold in
sect life was reduced to a br1et sea-
son. when experience and parental ed
ucation could no longer play their
part, the intelligence formerly ac-
CURED and transmitted from genera
| tion to generation must, according
to M. Perrier's theory, have been
CHANGED into immutable instinct; that
is to say, it must have been fixed at a
determinate point without power to
progress further Our present insects
| are THUS reproducing indefinitely the
| faculties and cerebral development OF
the insects of the secondary epoch OF
geological time"