58 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



has to start with, has apart from parental or self tuition. An 

 instinctive act, then, will be the opposite of an act due to 

 experience. The sum of an animal's instinctive abilities plus 

 the habits taught him by his life struggle will be the total of 

 his store of ability. 



It is clear that what an animal has to start with, due to the 

 organic structure it inherits, is a matter of prime importance in 

 the case of any animal whose consciously directed activities 

 you are studying. If we do not know its instinctive equipment, 

 we are likely to credit it with intelligent thinking for doing 

 something it really could n't have helped doing. Suppose I say 

 to you, " I have an intelligent chick who has learned so to adapt 

 his movements in the water that he can swim to shore," and 

 tossing him into the water, demonstrate that fact to you. It is 

 probable that many a one would say, " How remarkable ! Do 

 you suppose he reasoned out the way to act .■' How did he 

 learn to do it .>' " The real fact would be that he did not learn 

 to do it at all ; that all chicks react to water by swimming out 

 of it the very first time they ever get in it ; that chicks swim 

 instinctively. How long error may persist about any animal 

 activity is well shown by the recency of our knowledge that 

 walking is instinctive in the human infant. So the first task 

 of comparative psychology is to find out the instinctive equip- 

 ment of any animal studied. Instincts are, however, well worth 

 study for their own sake. An instinctive fear of a certain 

 enemy may be as truly useful to an animal as sharp teeth or 

 protective coloration. Instincts are the expressions of struc- 

 tures and functions of the nervous system, and are as real and 

 as important matters for the biologist as are bones and blood 

 vessels. 



It is outside the province of this lecture to enumerate or 

 describe the particular instincts of any group of animals, but we 

 should note that in spite of the tremendous number of instincts 

 that have been observed, the story has not been half told. A 

 rich field awaits the investigator. The humble chicken has 

 been under everybody's observation, and has been specially 

 studied by Spalding, Eimer, Preyer, Lloyd Morgan, and others, 

 yet I was able to record the following additional instinctive 



