THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INSTINCT 283 



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cles to enable them to give evidence of their instinctive power. 

 If Spalding's device securely protected the eyes of his chicks 

 from the light, which was apparently not true in all cases, we 

 are inclined to believe that the first attempts of those animals 

 would have been found upon careful study little if any more 

 accurate than the efforts of his day -old chicks. 



We are forced to conclude that another observation of Spald- 

 ing has been too freely generalized. In his original article 

 appears the following: 



" Something more curious, and of a different kind, came to 

 light in the case of three chickens that I had kept hooded until 

 nearly four days old — a longer time than any I have yet spoken 

 of. Each of these on being unhooded evinced the greatest 

 terror of me, dashing off in the opposite direction whenever 

 I sought to approach it. The table on which they were un- 

 hooded stood before a window, and each in its turn beat against 

 the glass like a wild bird. One of them darted behind some 

 books, and squeezing itself into a corner, remained cowering for 

 a length of time. We might guess at the meaning of this strange 

 and exceptional wildness ; but the odd fact is enough for my 

 present purpose. Whatever might have been the meaning of 

 this marked change in their mental constitution — had they been 

 unhooded on the previous day they would have run to me 

 instead of from me — -it could not have been the effect of experi- 

 ence ; it must have resulted wholly from changes in their own 

 organization." 3 



James, after quoting the above passage, does not hesitate, 

 as Spalding does, to supply the meaning of "this strange and 

 exceptional wildness:" 



' Their case was precisely analogous to that of the Adirondack 

 calves (of which James had been told by farmers in the Adi- 

 rondack wilderness). The two opposite instincts relative to 

 the same object ripen in succession. If the first one engenders 

 a habit, that habit will inhibit the application of the second 

 instinct to that object. All animals are tame during the earliest 

 phase of their infancy. Habits formed then limit the effects of 

 whatever instincts of wildness may later be evolved." * 



3 D. A. Spalding. Instinct. With original observations on young animals. 

 Macmillan's Magazine, 1873, p. 289. 



4 William James. Principles of Psychology, vol. II, p. 397. 



