RELATIONS OF COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 701 



Now there are diversities of opinion as to the range which should 

 be included under a definition of instinct as contrasted with intel- 

 ligence, and there are diversities of opinion as to the relations of the 

 one to the other in genetic process, especially as to how far the 

 modifications of behavior produced through the exercise of environ- 

 ing intelligence are directly inherited as variations of instinctive 

 endowment. I do not propose to discuss the pros and cons of that 

 difficult subject the inheritance of acquired characters. It suffices 

 to say that in accordance with an hypothesis, in the development of 

 which I am proud to be associated with Prof. Mark Baldwin and 

 Prof. Henry F. Osborn, intelligent modification of behavior, if it be 

 not the mother of congenital variations of hereditary instinct, may 

 none the less be regarded as their fostering nurse. 



This is not the occasion, however, on which to discuss diversities 

 of opinion or indeed to enter, in any detail, into the more distinct- 

 ively biological aspect of the study of instinct. From our point of 

 view the essential feature of instinctive procedure lies in the fact 

 that the behavior thus characterized is on its initial occurrence 

 prior to and independent of individual experience. It wholly de- 

 pends, as such, upon how the automatic centres have been built 

 through heredity. And from the standpoint of genetic psychology 

 it appears to me that the really important contribution which the 

 study of instinct offers for our consideration is this: that in any 

 given case of hereditary behavior what we may term an instinctive 

 situation is presented to consciousness, as, ontogenetically, a primary 

 unit-complex of experience, and that, as such, it is developed inde- 

 pendently of any guidance in terms of experience. By the situation 

 as presented to the environing consciousness I understand the whole 

 of the initial stimulation, including both external and internal fac- 

 tors, the net results of the behavior as the situation develops, and 

 the satisfaction or dissatisfaction which is attached thereto. We, 

 as psychologists, analyze the instinctive situation. But I conceive 

 that it is presented to consciousness as one developing whole. And 

 the mode of its development is an organic legacy; it is essentially 

 a flow of physiological process in the automatic centres; but it 

 entails a flow of consciousness in the environing control-centres; 

 and this flow of consciousness in its entirety, within a given situa- 

 tion, I am disposed to regard as a primary datum in ontogenetic 

 development. 



This thesis, which I purposely express in a somewhat extreme 

 form for the sake of emphasis, involves a protest, I do not say against 

 a too analytic treatment of the early phases of mental process (for 

 it is our function to analyze and compare), but against the assump- 

 tion that the products of our analysis are, psychologically con- 

 sidered, genetic units. We sometimes fail to realize to how great 



