ORGANIC MOVEMENTS 37 



every explanation of combinations that are typical units. 

 We do not know what the " history ' of instincts is, nor 

 do we know the factors concerned in their history. Let 

 us rather try to discover a little about what factors are 

 concerned in instinctive movements as they actually come 

 before us every day. 



At this point a second problem appears, round which 

 discussion centres nowadays. We shall be forced to decline 

 a limine this problem also, but a certain justification is 

 required for declining it, and as this justification is to rest 

 on an epistemological basis, which is of first-rate importance 

 for all our studies of animal movements in this chapter and 

 the next, a short excursion into philosophy is necessary. 



Are instincts " conscious " or " unconscious " movements ? 

 this is the question that is always being discussed at the 

 present day. And yet this problem cannot be a scientific 

 or philosophical problem, at least not if the words " con- 

 scious ' and " consciousness ''' are to signify what they 

 usually do. Let us proceed most rigorously with regard to 

 this point. 



As naturalists we study animal movements as move- 

 ments of bodies in Nature, and we can do no more. But 

 the terms " conscious " and " consciousness "' do not belong 

 to that part of the Given which we call Nature ; they 

 belong to the Ego, to " my " Ego, and to my Ego exclusively. 

 It is not even possible to express with clearness what is 

 meant by saying that there " is " consciousness in any 

 being in Nature. We are faced here by a pseudo-problem 

 of the purest type. 



Other physiologists also have denied the possibility of 

 discovering " consciousness >! or " unconsciousness * in the 



