216 THE PSYCHICAL KINSHIP 



closer examination shows that instinct and the 

 conscious understanding do not stand in absolute 

 contrast, but rather in a complex relation, and 

 cannot be sharply marked off from each other.' 

 It is instinct that urges the bird to build its nest ; 

 but when birds whose habit it is to build on the 

 ground learn, on the introduction of cats into the 

 neighbourhood, to change their nesting-places to 

 the tree-tops, intelligence and thought are neces- 

 sary. The first time Cavy (one of my guinea-pigs) 

 smelled a cat, she was almost scared to death. 

 She jumped back from it as if she had come in 

 contact with a red-hot stove, and screamed and 

 kept on screaming, and shot down under my coat 

 as if she were about to be crucified. After a little 

 while I tried to pull her out, but she refused, and 

 kept hiding. The second time the kitten was pre- 

 sented to her the result was the same. But after 

 two or three days of association, she paid little 

 more attention to it than to the other guinea-pigs. 

 She had never seen a cat before. // was the odour 

 of the carnivore that terrified her, and the effect 

 was purely instinctive. But instinct was soon 

 modified by intelligent experience. (Poor dear 

 little Cavy I I wonder where she is now I) 



Both instinct and reason (and one, too, just as 

 much as the other) are absolutely dependent upon 

 processes that are purely mechanical that is, 

 upon brain processes ; and brain processes depend 

 upon brain structure, which is inherited. Hence, 

 reason is, in a certain sense, as truly inherited as 

 instinct is. A being must be born with the 



