40 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



7. THE WORK OF J. LOEB 



Up to about 1890 instincts were studied almost exclu- 

 sively from the historical point of view, or with regard to 

 their relation to " consciousness." Jacques Loeb was the 

 first to see the inadequacy of both these methods, and to 

 put the problem of instinct on its clear physiological basis. 

 Unfortunately in doing so Loeb was influenced by the 

 materialistic dogmatism of his time. The single reflex was 

 to him the prototype of all elemental factors concerned in 

 movement, all complex or chain movements were regarded 

 as being of the most simple additive kind, even the compli- 

 cations afterwards discussed by von Uexkuell were then 

 unknown. Hence it was possible for Loeb to regard in- 

 stincts also as nothing but chain-reflexes of the mere addi- 

 tive type. One of the elementary processes composing the 

 instinct was regarded as being the cause of the next one, 

 and so on. The general state of the organism was not 

 neglected in this analysis, and it was well known to Loeb 

 that young animals may show " chain -reflexes ' different 

 from those shown by the adult, and that a well-nourished 

 animal may react differently from a hungry animal ; but 

 the different physiological state of the animal in these cases 

 was a priori regarded as being a mere point of its organisa- 

 tion in the widest sense, and nervous conduction remained 

 the only physiological element taken as proved ; even so- 

 called " inhibition " was not regarded as a nervous function 

 sui generis. 



Thus pseudo-psychological problems yielded to problems 

 of mechanical dogmatism in the physiology of instincts. 



But in spite of that, one point of great importance was 



