vi intelligence and reason 223 



Intelligence, Eeason, Habit (Automatic Actions), 



Instinct 



I conceive the distinction between intelligence and reason 

 in the following way : Intelligent actions are those which 

 only have in view the momentary and immediate personal 

 interests ; reasonable action is that which also considers in 

 relation to its experience and faculties the general interests 

 — fellow-men — and the future, knowing that by so doing 

 personal interests are doubly protected — or which depends on 

 general conclusions. These definitions by no means imply 

 that there are no animals which act according to reason. 

 Indeed, it can be proved by examples, to those who reflect 

 without prejudice, that animals reason; and that in animals 

 actions founded on reason become automatic and are inherited 

 I have already pointed out in my Freiburg address. 



I describe as automatic actions those which, originally 

 performed consciously and voluntarily, in consequence of 

 frequent practice, come to be performed unconsciously and 

 involuntarily. Herein I differ from those who use the term 

 automatic as synonymous with reflex. Instead of the expres- 

 sion automatic actions, that of habitual actions may be used. 



and connected with the material of those cells. The powers are partially inherited, 

 partially acquired or modified by adaptation. This adaptation is effected either 

 by external stimuli, in an empirical way by means of the senses, or by internal 

 stimuli proceeding from the condition of the brain, or body, itself at the moment. 

 Since the condition of tension is altered by stimuli, cumulative effects of stimuli 

 increase the tension to its limits, and a final stimulus is at last capable of effecting 

 the release. Will is thus the result of a number of factors, which are partly 

 hereditary and material, partly directly or indirectly derived from the outer world. 

 Involuntary and voluntary action do not differ essentially, but only in so far that 

 the latter presupposes an accumulation, a storing-up of impressions in a common 

 organ (the brain), and the possibility of an interaction of these. The will can 

 therefore never be free. The erroneous idea of its freedom depends in each 

 particular case on the neglect of factors of which it is always the slave. 



" By consciousness I understand the sensation of the condition, as affected by the 

 outer world, of the brain at a given moment " {Zoolog. Studien auf Capri, i. Beroe 

 ovahis, eiri Beitrag zicr Anatomie der RippenciucdUn, Leipzig, Engelmann, 1873). 



