ON INSTINCT IN MAN AND ANIMALS 



continued study in the same direction only render the 

 erroneous conclusions more ingrained and more irremovable. 



Definition of Instinct 



Before going further into this subject we must determine 

 what we mean by the term instinct. It has been variously 

 defined as " disposition operating without the aid of instruc- 

 tion or experience," " a mental power totally independent of 

 organisation," or "a power enabling an animal to do that 

 which, in those things man can do, results from a chain of 

 reasoning, and in things which man cannot do, is not to be 

 explained by any efforts of the intellectual faculties." We 

 find, too, that the word instinct is very frequently applied to 

 acts which are evidently the result either of organisation or 

 of habit. The colt or calf is said to walk instinctively, almost 

 as soon as it is born ; but this is solely due to its organisation, 

 which renders walking both possible and pleasurable to it. 

 So we are said instinctively to hold out our hands to save 

 ourselves from falling, but this is an acquired habit, which 

 the infant does not possess. It appears to me that instinct 

 should be defined as "the performance by an animal of 

 complex acts, absolutely without instruction or previously 

 acquired knowledge." Thus, acts are said to be performed 

 by birds in building their nests, by bees in constructing their 

 cells, and by many insects in providing for the future wants 

 of themselves or their progeny, without ever having seen such 

 acts performed by others, and without any knowledge of why 

 they perform them themselves. This is expressed by the 

 very common term "blind instinct." But we have here a 

 number of assertions of matters of fact, which, strange to say, 

 have never been proved to be facts at all. They are thought 

 to be so self-evident that they may be taken for granted. 

 No one has ever yet obtained the eggs of some bird which 

 builds an elaborate nest, hatched these eggs by steam or 

 under a quite distinct parent, placed them afterwards in an 

 extensive aviary or covered garden, where the situation and 

 the materials of a nest similar to that of the parent birds may 

 be found, and then seen what kind of nest these birds would 

 build. If under these rigorous conditions they choose the 

 same materials, the same situation, and construct the nest in 



