Organic Nature s Riddle 325 



phenomena connected therewith which may be observed in 

 our asyhims for the insane. 



There are other human actions which are sometimes 

 reckoned as instinctive, such as guarding the eye against 

 injury by suddenly closing the eyelids. This action, how- 

 ^ever, appears to be an acquired art, though the habitual act 

 ^Bf winking to keep clean the surface of the eye may be 

 ^■istinctive. Some other actions, however, not generally re- 

 ^^arded as instinctive, I should be disposed so to regard. 

 Such are the first active exercises of the senses of seeing, 

 hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling (the first ' looking,' the 

 first' listening,' etc.) which the child performs at the very 

 beginning of its learning to perform them. It would seem, 

 then, as if no one could deny the existence of such a thing 

 as instinct, and yet it has been denied, not only in recent 

 times, but centuries ago. Thus Montaigne sought to explain 

 instinct as but a form of intelligence, while Descartes taught 

 that it was but mechanism. Condillac regarded it as the 

 result of individual experience, and Lamarck considered it 

 to be merely ' habit ' which had become hereditary. In our 

 own day Darwin has sought to explain it as partly the result 

 of accidental variations of activity, which variations have 

 become naturally selected, and partly the result of inteUi- 

 gent, purposive action which has become habitual and 

 inherited. Let us consider these attempts at explanation 

 seriatim. First as to mechanism : This is an hjrpothesis 

 no one at present entertains, as every one now credits 

 animals with sensitivity. Moreover, instincts are not ab- 

 solutely invariable, but are modifiable according to the 

 degree of ' intelligence ' which animals possess. They can- 

 not, therefore, be due merely to a mechanism. The attempt 

 to explain * instinct ' by mere ' reflex action ' is equivalent to 

 an attempt to explain a phenomenon by omitting its most 

 strilving characteristic. In ' reflex action ' we have a sudden 



