CHAPTER XVII 



VOLUNTARY ACTION 



Instinct Reason Memory Sitaris Dragon-fly The instincts of Man 

 The evolution of Memory and Reason Animals that tend their 

 young Social animals The ant Traditional knowledge in the 

 lower animals Comparison of the frog with the human being. 



373. VOLUNTARY actions may be divided into those which 

 result from inborn mental impulses (i. e. desires) and those 

 which result from acquired mental impulses. The former 

 are termed instinctive, the latter, for the want of a better 

 word, we may term " rational." l Rational actions, at any 

 rate all deliberate rational actions, are admittedly voluntary. 



1 Generally, especially by technical writers, the term reason is used 

 in a sense much more restricted than in the present work. Thus some 

 authors draw a distinction between intelligence and reason, the former 

 being denned as the faculty by which we draw " perceptual inferences," 

 the latter as the faculty by which we draw " conceptual inferences.'' In 

 an elaborate discussion of the subject it may be convenient for the 

 purpose of clear definition to so limit the meaning of the word, but 

 then no term remains by which the entire faculty of drawing inferences 

 may be noted a faculty which obviously depends on the association of 

 ideas, on memory. By common acceptance the power of drawing infer- 

 ences, the power of using past experiences as guides to future conduct, 

 has been termed reason. Certainly no other word in the language has 

 been used so widely to designate this power. " All the higher animals 

 manifest in various degrees the faculty of inferring. Now, this is the 

 faculty of reason, properly so-called." (Romanes, Mental Evolution in 

 Man, p. 12. See also The Descent of Man, p. 114.) Conception has 

 been described as " the sense of sameness." We get our conceptions by 

 not only knowing things, but by knowing more or less about them. As 

 a rule, we know much more about things than lower animals, and 

 therefore our powers of conception show a corresponding superiority. 

 The beginnings, however, of the power are, I think, observable in the 

 more intelligent brutes. When present in a drawing-room I was once 

 bitten by the house-dog. The bite was not severe, I did not start nor 

 exclaim, and the affair passed unnoticed. Later I said to my hostess, 

 "Does your dog bite people?" "No," she replied. "At least not 

 unless they are badly-dressed tramps and that kind of people." 

 Apparently that dog had a rudimentary sense of sameness. 



220 



