MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 387 



INSTINCT. 



By H. L. MiLLEE, High School, Topeka. 

 Read before the Academy, at Topeka, December 30, 1904. 



1^0 better subject than instinct could be found to demonstrate that 

 -^^ knowledge begins and ends in mystery. The biologist amuses 

 himself in observing the battle waged between the physiologist and 

 the psychologist, the one attributing reactions in lower organisms to 

 mechanical stimuli ; the other accepting the indisputable states of 

 consciousness in the higher forms of life ; the two approaching each 

 other by traveling in parallel lines. The common-sense view attrib- 

 utes all activities to the nature of the animal. It is only the mind 

 debauched with learning that finds difficulty in explaining common 

 things. The sophomore can write a breezy paper on a subject that 

 would tax to the utmost the mind of a candidate for the doctor's de- 

 gree. Lack of agreement in terminology affords a wide field for the 

 savant and the neophyte. 



The doctrine of "parallelism" seems to be reasonable — "every 

 psychic phenomenon has a determinate physical concomitant." If 

 there could be established an objective criterion of consciousness, 

 there might be some information obtained on animal intelligence. 

 Certainly mental states are conditioned or accompanied by physical 

 states, and there are numerous well-defined physical signs of mental 

 life. But even introspective psychology reaches the point where 

 silence is the highest manifestation of reason. A sensation of red 

 perceived by me has no imaginable community either with vibrations 

 of ether or with physico-chemical modifications of retinal or cerebral 

 cells. My perception of space, surface, volume has no conceivable 

 community of nature with that of objective surface or extent. My 

 perception of five miles will not have anything like extensiveness in 

 consciousness. No distance in perception separates objective realities. 

 The "impassable chasm" is fixed. The law is absolute and funda- 

 mental. The metaphysician may have a theory that will satisfy any 

 one but the scientist. The tendency is to get away from any anthropo- 

 morphic conception of instincts. The physiological method begins 

 with the lowest forms of life and by a series of experiments through 

 the ascending scale would explain motor manifestations by referring 

 them to physico-chemical mechanisms. 



Possibly the realm of consciousness and intelligence is reached 

 somewhere about the dividing line between the invertebrates and the 

 vertebrates. The following experiment is mentioned in introducing 



