VI E. V. HARTMANN ON INSTINCT 299 



tation to describe reflex action also as instinct, and to speak 

 of a reflex instinct, and an instinct of intelligence and of 

 reason. In fact, this course has been adopted by E. v. Hart- 

 mann in the criticism ^ which he published, at first anony- 

 mously, of his own Pliilosopliy of the Unconscious. In the 

 chapter on the " Instincts of the subordinate central organs of 

 the nervous system," he says : " When an isolated and washed 

 frog's heart goes on beating for hours, the cause of this can 

 only be sought in the predisposition of the cardiac ganglia to 

 rhythmical action, which excites the muscular fibres of the 

 heart to contractions in the same rhythm. Such a predisposi- 

 tion in the ganglia, of which the typical active manifestations 

 have as much of the character of spontaneity as the instinct- 

 ive expression of will in any animal can ever have, must be 

 called instinct as undoubtedly as its functions must be called 

 will, since the unconscious purposefulness of its results is not 

 to be called in question. . . . 



" What is true of the movements of the heart of course holds 

 good for the movements of the stomach and intestines, and for 

 the tone of the viscera, the blood-vessels, and muscles in rela- 

 tion to the sympathetic nervous system, as well as for the 

 respiratory movements in relation to the medulla oblongata ; 

 it likewise holds in relation to the cerebellum for those spon- 

 taneous movements and actions which birds and mammals 

 execute after the extirpation of the cerebral hemispheres. . . . 

 Here we arrive at once at the chapter of reflex movements, 

 and, in fact, instinct and reflex action cannot be separated, for 

 in instinct also some external motive of action must always 

 be present, and the action follows upon this motive necessar- 

 ily, therefore, in a reflex manner." And farther on : " As we 

 have seen that all forms of bodily dexterity are acquired, in- 

 herited, and when inherited improved by practice, so we must 



^ Das Unheivusste vom Standpunkt cler Physiologie unci Descendenztheorie, 

 Berlin, second edition, 1877, p. 206, et seq. 



