THE MIND OF APES AND OF MAN 267 



vision with this visible thing, and such and such a move- 

 ment of the limbs or jaws or other parts ensues. The 

 stimulation of skin, eye, ear, or nose conveys a " message " 

 by nerves to the " brain," or centre, and immediately, by 

 other nerves an " answer " is conveyed from the brain or 

 centre in the shape of an order to this and those muscles 

 to contract, the appropriate nerves being set at work and 

 exciting the related muscles to contraction. The number 

 of possible excitations and related responsive movements 

 thus arranged is numerically very great in many animals, 

 but they are limited. They are inherited just as they 

 are, and come into action as soon as the necessary 

 growth of the parts involved is attained, without hesita- 

 tion or tentative trial. They are ready made. The 

 terms " instinct " and " instinctive " should be limited to 

 the action of this inherited apparatus or mechanism. 



All animals, including man, have more or less of 

 such an inherited instinctive nervous apparatus. Man, 

 or for the matter of that an animal, may be "conscious " 

 (in the sense of being "aware") of the stimulus given to 

 this inherited apparatus, and of its related action, or he 

 may be " unconscious " of either. The point is that we 

 have here the " working " of an apparatus inherited in a 

 complete working state ; it is, therefore, what we call 

 instinctive. On the other hand, there are in higher 

 animals, and especially in man, a vast number of actions 

 performed which are not the outcome of an inborn ready- 

 made nervous mechanism. On the contrary, these 

 actions are determined by a mechanism built up in the 

 animal during its individual existence — a mechanism 

 which is formed by its individual experience acting on 

 its nerve-cells, and is the outcome of observation, com- 

 parison, and, more or less, of processes which we call 

 judgment and reasoning. The persistence of this 



