ii INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 153 



becomes consciousness, so that consciousness, here, 

 is only an accident. Essentially, consciousness only 

 emphasizes the starting-point of instinct, the point at 

 which the whole series of automatic movements is 

 released. Deficit, on the contrary, is the normal state 

 of intelligence. Labouring under difficulties is its very 

 essence. Its original function being to construct 

 unorganized instruments, it must, in spite of number 

 less difficulties, choose for this work the place and the 

 time, the form and the matter. And it can never satisfy 

 itself entirely, because every new satisfaction creates 

 new needs. In short, while instinct and intelligence 

 both involve knowledge, this knowledge is rather acted 

 and unconscious in the case of instinct, thought and 

 conscious in the case of intelligence. But it is a 

 difference rather of degree than of kind. So long as 

 consciousness is all we are concerned with, we close 

 our eyes to what is, from the psychological point 

 of view, the cardinal difference between instinct and 

 intelligence. 



In order to get at this essential difference we must, 

 without stopping at the more or less brilliant light which 

 illumines these two modes of internal activity, go 

 straight to the two objects^ profoundly different from 

 each other, upon which instinct and intelligence are 

 directed. 



When the horse-fly lays its eggs on the legs or 

 shoulders of the horse, it acts as if it knew that its 

 larva has to develop in the horse s stomach and that 

 the horse, in licking itself, will convey the larva into 

 its digestive tract. When a paralysing wasp stings its 

 victim on just those points where the nervous centres 

 lie, so as to render it motionless without killing it, 

 it acts like a learned entomologist and a skilful surgeon 



