Organic Nature s Riddle 3^9 



Pl^uished from intellectual consciousness as ' consentience/ 

 We may also, as everybody knows, suddenly recollect sights 

 or sounds which were quite unnoticed at the time we 

 experienced them ; yet our very recollection of them proves 

 that they must, nevertheless, have affected our sensorium.^ 

 Such unnoticed modifications of our sense organs may also 

 be provisionally included in the category of those actions of 

 the lower animals, before provisionally denominated ' unfelt 

 sensations.' It is not, however, with such inferior activities 

 as reflex and other insentient actions that instinct is com- 

 monly contrasted, but with ' reason.' Now ' reasonable,' 

 ' consciously intelligent ' conduct is understood by all men to 

 mean conduct in which there is a more or less wise adapta- 

 tion of means to ends — a conscious, deliberate adaptation, 

 not one due to accident only. No one would call an act 

 done blindly a reasonable or intelligent action on the part 

 of him who did it, however fortunate might be its result. 

 Instinctive actions, then, hold a middle place between (1) 

 those which are rational, or truly intelligent, and (2) those 

 in which sensation has no place. But a great variety of 

 actions of different kinds occupy this intermediate position, 

 and we must next proceed to separate off from the others 

 such actions as may be deemed truly instinctive. 



M. Albert Lemoine, who has written the best treatise ^ 

 known to us on instinct and habit, distinguishes instinc- 

 tive actions as those which are neither due to mechanical 

 or chemical causes, nor to intelligence, experience, or will. 

 They are actions which take place with a general fixity 

 and precision, are present in all the individuals of each 

 species, and can be perfectly performed the very first time 

 their action is called for, so that they cannot be due to 

 habit. Instinct, he very truly says, is more than a want 

 and less than a desire. Instinct is a certain felt internal 



^ See antt, p. 220. ^ U Habitude et Vlnstinct. Bailli^re. Paris, 1875. 



