536 



NA TURE 



[June 30, 1910 



a tropical landscape, with a wonderful lawn of Selaginella 

 Kraussiana, and forming the main feature in a four-sided 

 series of smaller houses devoted especially to aroids, 

 tropical dicotyledons, tropical orchids, other tropical 

 monocotyledons, tropical ferns, various succulents, 

 Cactaceae — these last two forming a particularly fine collec- 

 tion — tropical economic plants, tropical water and marsh 

 plants, Cape plants, subtropical Australian plants, and 

 others ; also a large temperature house and numerous 

 culture houses. The museum contains a spacious 

 herbarium and a number of fine exhibition galleries, in- 

 cluding sections devoted to biology, systematic botany, 

 palaeobotany, plant-geography, and economic botany, also 

 a section illustrating the products of the various German 

 colonies. In addition there is a large lecture theatre, a 

 laboratory, and a number of work-rooms. The whole 

 forms a magnificent example of botanical organisation and 

 €nterprise. 



On the following day opportunity was given for visiting 

 the State School of Horticulture and the Biological Institute 

 for Agriculture and Forestry, both adjoining the Botanic 

 Garden. 



An interesting and enjoyable meeting closed with a 

 pleasant excursion on the Wannsee to Potsdam, arranged 

 by the Union of Systematists and Plant-geographers. This 

 included a visit to Sans-Souci and the Royal Park and 

 Gardens under the guidance of Director Fintelmann. 



A. B. R. 



AN ENGLISH PHILOSOPHICAL CONGRESS. 

 /^N Friday and Saturday last, June 24 and 25, joint 

 ^^ meetings of the Aristotelian Society, the British 

 Psychological Society, and the Mind Association were held 

 at 22 Albemarle Street, London, at which subjects of wide 

 philosophical and psychological importance were discussed 

 before large and interested audiences. The discussions 

 were based upon papers previously printed and circulated 

 among the members of the several societies. On Friday 

 afternoon the problem of " Instinct and Intelligence " was 

 considered on the basis of papers by Messrs. C. S. Myers, 

 C Lloyd Morgan, H. Wildon Carr, G. F. Stout, and 

 Wm. McDougall ; Saturday morning was devoted to the 

 discussion of the question, " Are Secondary Qualities Inde- 

 pendent of Perception? " on the basis of papers by Messrs. 

 T. Percy Nunn and F. C. S. Schiller ; and the congress 

 was brought to a close on Saturday afternoon with papers 

 on the nature and development of attention, by Mr. G. 

 Dawes Hicks; the "faculty" doctrine: outline of some 

 experiments on school children in relation to this doctrine, 

 by Mr. W. H. Winch ; and some observations on the 

 aesthetic appreciation of colour combinations, by Mr. E. 

 Bullough. 



I. — Instinct and Intelligence. 



Dr. C. S. Myers maintained the view that instinct and 

 intelligence are inseparable in all formis of mental activity, 

 animal and human alike ; that they are respectively the 

 objective and subjective aspects of the same thing, viz. 

 mental process in general and in its various particular 

 manifestations; and that instinctive behaviour, while 

 characterised by mechanism in its objective aspect, is from 

 the point of view of the experiencing subject characterised 

 by finalism. He criticised the two assumptions common'y 

 made with regard to instinct as a form of mental process 

 distinct from intelligence, viz. that in instinctive behaviour 

 as such there is no awareness in the individual's conscious- 

 ness of the end to be achieved, and that such behaviour is 

 fixed and from the beginning perfect. He pointed out 

 that an instinct is to be distinguished from a mere reflex 

 or chain of reflexes by (i) a feeling of activity, and (2) a 

 vague awareness of the result of the instinctive action 

 before the action is actually performed, both characteristics 

 being present in the very first manifestation of the instinct. 

 These rudiments of conation and meaning are essential 

 constituents of any activity deserving the characterisation 

 " instinctive." Observations of instinctive activities in 

 -insects and other animals do not justify the view that such 

 activities are "perfect the very first time," or that they 



exhibit undeviating uniformity ; " even ants are capable of 

 learning from their elders," and this power is generally 

 regarded as a sign of intelligence. The common view that 

 man has few instincts compared with the lower animals 

 is partly accountable for by the fact that " he is never 

 aware that he is acting instinctively." His inner or sub- 

 jective acquaintance with those activities pronounces them 

 to be of the nature of intelligence. 



Lastly, from the more general points of view of evolu- 

 tion and philosophy, the iinalistic interpretation of the 

 evolution of mind, and indeed of the entire universe, is 

 the necessary complement and essential correlative of the 

 mechanical interpretation, if our thought is to be saved 

 from that pure abstraction — purposeless mechanism. 



In conclusion, neither are instincts identifiable with 

 reflexes, nor do they form a third class in addition to those 

 of reflexes and intelligence. Surjiming up in Dr. Myers's 

 own words : — " According to my view and my use of the 

 words, instinct regarded from within becomes intelligence ; 

 intelligence regarded from without becomes instinct." 



Prof. Lloyd Morgan agreed with Dr. Myers so far as 

 to admit that the two factors, instinct and intelligence, 

 " are present in the most intimate relationship throughout 

 very nearly the whole range of animal behaviour as ex- 

 hibited by those organisms in which the central nervous 

 system has reached a sufficiently high level of develop- 

 ment and differentiation to justify the use of the words 

 'instinctive' and 'intelligent.'" In his view, "the 

 instinctive factors depend entirely on how the nervous 

 system has been built up through heredity under that 

 mode of racial preparation which we call evolution ; intelli- 

 gent behaviour depends also on how the nervous system 

 has been modified and moulded in the course of that 

 individual preparation which we call the acquisition of 

 experience." (Dr. Myers suggested in the course of the 

 discussion that this was genetic rather than psychological 

 analysis.) 



Prof. Lloyd Morgan illustrated his views by means of 

 a somewhat detailed account of the experience of a young 

 moorhen chick, and gave as a brief definition of instinc- 

 tive behaviour, behaviour which is " practically serviceable 

 on the occasion of its first performance," thus including 

 within its scope reflex action so far as this is accompanied 

 by consciousness. He also referred to the behaviour of 

 rhe Yucca moth, and to the stinging of prey by the solitary 

 wasps, as instances of instincts performed once only in the 

 lifetime of the individual, where learning by imitation, 

 Sec, was impossible. He considered that the element of 

 intelligence supervened in originally instinctive behaviour 

 by the introduction of " meaning " through " factors of 

 revival," though he emphasised the fact that " this is 

 every whit as much the outcome of the innate potentiality of 

 the moorhen as the originally instinctive performance." 

 If instinct be identified with innate potentiality, all intelli- 

 gent behaviour involves an instinctive element. 



Mr. H. Wildon Carr considered the problem from the 

 philosophical standpoint, and gave a detailed exposition 

 of Bergson's views, which he supported by arguments for 

 the most part metaphysical. He refused to identify natural 

 dispositions or tendencies with instinct, and for this reason 

 found himself unable to agree with Dr. Myers's view. He 

 emphasised the contrast between the very complicated 

 instinctive activities of ants, bees, &c., many of which can- 

 not by any possibility have been learnt by individual experi- 

 ence, and the more pronounced cases of intelligence in man, 

 and, reminding his audience that " instinct and intelligence 

 are not observable facts, but interpretations," proceeded to 

 show how the two terms represent two distinct lines of 

 evolution of animal life, along each of which there is to 

 be found no tendency towards evolution in the direction- of 

 the other. Along one, instinct evolves at the expense of 

 intelligence ; along the other, intelligence evolves at the 

 expense of instinct. " The fundamental difference is one 

 of kind, and lies in the mode of apprehension of reality, 

 and the kind of knowledge that serves the activity of each. 

 It is this essential difference that accounts for the 

 degree of consciousness or unconsciousness, plasticity or 

 fixity that characterises each, and not vice versa. ... It 

 is not a scientific but a metaphysical distinction, which 

 rests on a criticism of the nature and limitations of intel- 



NO. 2122, VOL. 83] 



