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the modification of structures justifies us in anticipating 
that it will be equally effective in the modification of 
instincts, and then immediately proceeds to assert that, 
in the case of instincts, intelligence anticipates the slower 
processes of Natural Selection. 
In the second place, he asserts that in this anticipation 
of the process of Natural Selection by intelligence, Natural 
Selection is operating at a greater advantage than in any 
other department of organic nature. If he had said this 
of the principle of evolution, it would have been perfectly 
true. But what he says amounts to this,—that a supposed 
law of nature acts at the greatest advantage when it is 
anticipated by another law. That seems to me very much 
like saying that the race-horse never shows to so much 
advantage as when it is left far behind by its competi 
tor ; that the strategist never shows to so much advantage 
as when he marches a small force to seize an undefended 
town, and finds that the enemy has anticipated his ruse 
and has fortified the place, so that attack is hopeless ; 
or that the suitor is never so successful as when his rival 
has anticipated his action and won the hand of his lady 
love. If this is the best illustration of the action of 
Natural Selection, it must be regarded as no better than 
the most pronounced failure. Nor can it be a much 
better illustration of the action of Natural Selection to 
represent it as supplementing the influence of lapsing 
intelligence, since we believe that it is improbable—and 
indeed, impossible—that it should so intervene. 
Elsewhere, Mr. Romanes compares the evolution of 
instinct by lapsing intelligence with evolution by Natural 
Selection. He quotes the following passage from Sir 
John Lubbock :— 
“ I suppose that the sand-wasps originally merely killed their prey 
by stinging them in many places, and that to sting a certain segment