terrible extinguisher, I went ahead, persisted, facing my
difficulties, until the indomitable bump ended by shedding its
scanty contents. Yes, they were very scanty, yet possibly of some
value, if circumstances had come to their assistance. I was a born
animalist. Why and how? No reply.

We thus have, all of us, in different directions and in a greater
or lesser degree, characteristics that brand us with a special
mark, characteristics of an unfathomable origin. They exist
because they exist; and that is all that any one can say. The gift
is not handed down: the man of talent has a fool for a son. Nor is
it acquired; but it is improved by practice. He who has not the
germ of it in his veins will never possess it, in spite of all the
pains of a hothouse education.

That to which we give the name of instinct when speaking of animals
is something similar to genius. It is, in both cases, a peak that
rises above the ordinary level. But instinct is handed down,
unchanged and undiminished, throughout the sequence of a species;
it is permanent and general and in this it differs greatly from
genius, which is not transmissible and changes in different cases.
Instinct is the inviolable heritage of the family and falls to one
and all, without distinction. Here the difference ends.
Independent of similarity of structure, it breaks out like genius,
here or elsewhere, for no perceptible reason. Nothing causes it to
be foreseen, nothing in the organization explains it. If cross-
examined on this point, the Dung beetles and the rest, each with
his own peculiar talent, would answer, were we able to understand
them: 'Instinct is the animal's genius.'