SEXUAL TENDENCIES IN MONKEYS 315 



above generalizations. Lasurski (2), whose Hauptneigungen 

 bear many points of resemblance to the reactive tendencies of 

 my conception, avoids this danger by stopping short at the point 

 at which he recognizes various relatively separate directions 

 in which a given individual's activities may go in response to a 

 limited number of principal inclinations. He regards these 

 inclinations (tendencies) as artificial abstractions to which, 

 nevertheless, human personality is most profitably and conveni- 

 ently reducible. McDougall (3) calls attention to the fact that 

 " The activities of each species are directed almost exclusively 

 towards a small number of special ends — reproduction, the secur- 

 ing of food, the escape from danger, the protection of the young, 

 the violent destruction of whatever opposes these great tendencies, 

 and a few others that differ from species to species." To this 

 he adds: ' The concentration of the animal upon any of these 

 ends does not depend upon its acquired experience, but upon some 

 feature of its innate constitution; and that feature is what we 

 commonly and properly call an instinct, an innate tendency to 

 strive after some end of a particular kind, an innate conative 

 tendency. ' ' 



The reactive tendency of my definition differs from Lasurski 's 

 Hauptneigung in that it is meant to connote something more 

 than an artificial abstraction, and to refer to specific properties 

 of the organism rather than to the generally inclusive traits of 

 personality that Lasurski has in mind. It differs from McDougall's 

 innate conative tendency in its recognition of the fact that the fea- 

 tures of an animal's innate constitution are plastic, and capable 

 of modification by experience. I am also inclined to approach 

 the analysis of behavior from a somewhat different viewpoint 

 than that which is implied in McDougall's statements. In 

 dealing with behavior one is apt to be diverted from the most 

 proximate aspect of the phenomena under consideration by esti- 

 mating the facts solely with reference to the ultimate needs of 

 the individual or, more usually, of the species. It is somewhat 

 artificial, I believe, to assume that a given sequence of activities 

 is set in operation by outer stimuli acting in conjunction with a 

 need which is more apt to be a product of the biologist's analysis 

 than (in other than a rather mystical sense) dynamically a part 

 of the animal's reactive equipment. The preferable course is to 

 identify individual hungers which are the product of inner, 



