June 30, 1910] 



NA TURE 



537 



lectual and instinctive knowledge." Intelligence is a 

 knowledge of the relations of things, instinct is a direct 

 insight into their inner nature. Bergson has employed the 

 word "sympathy," in its technical sense, to represent this 

 kind of knowledge. In Mr. Carr's view, mechanism and 

 finalism are mutual contradictions, resulting from the 

 limitations of merely intellectual knowledge. 



Prof. G. F. Stout agreed with Dr. Myers, as against 

 Prof. Llo)-d Morgan, that every instinctive action as such 

 is determined by intelligence, for the reason that the very 

 first performance of an instinctive action involves intelli- 

 gence. Adopting provisionally Prof. Morgan's own 

 criterion of intelligence as " learning by experience," he 

 showed that the learning must take place on the first 

 occasion and not on the second (where the second is the 

 presentation of a situation similar to that of the first, but 

 to which the animal reacts in a different way owing to 

 its previous experience). " On the second occasion the 

 lesson is utilised ; but in order to be utilised it must already 

 have been learned." Unless there is mental reference 

 beyond the immediate present there can be no intelligence, 

 but such reference cannot be furnished by mere revival of 

 past experience itself lacking reference. Conation, or the 

 felt tendency towards an end, which, equally with the 

 cognitive aspect, is present in the first performance of an 

 instinctive act, forms the basis of attention and initiative 

 which contributes to the " future reference " above-men- 

 tioned, and also definitely marks off instinctive action from 

 merely reflex action. 



Prof. Stout rejected Mr. Carr's view that instinct is a 

 peculiar way of knowing, distinct from intelligence, his 

 reason being that he could " find nothing in the instinctive 

 behaviour of animals which cannot be accounted for by 

 the combination of certain purely biological adaptations 

 with psychical processes marked by intelligence funda- 

 mentally akin in nature to all other intelligence." He 

 sided with Prof. Morgan against Dr. Myers in thinking 

 that use of the term instinct should not be extended to 

 cover all cases of inherited nervous organisation condition- 

 ing the development of intelligence, but that the word 

 should be used " to mark off a distinct kind of connate 

 endowment," viz. congenitally definite modes of behaviour; 

 but he supplemented Prof. Morgan's criterion of definite- 

 ness (definite enough to be " practically serviceable on the 

 occasion of its first performance ") by saying that the 

 congenital definiteness referred to was " a definiteness such 

 as would require to be explained as the result of learning 

 by experience or conscious contrivance, if it were not 

 directly provided for by inherited constitution of the 

 nervous system, as determined by the course of biological 

 development." What non-instinctive congenital endow- 

 ment provides for is " a special capacity for acquiring skill 

 and knowledge," itself dependent on interest and retentive- 

 ness. It IS marked endowment in this direction which 

 distinguishes genius from ordinary ability. 



In Stout's view, instinct " is mainly confined to animal 

 life, and in the life of animals it has a two-fold function. 

 On the one hand, it is a substitute for learning by experi- 

 ence. On the other, it has an educative value as a con- 

 dition of learning by experience ; it has this value inasmuch 

 as it provides an animal with the experiences which are 

 useful to it, and thus enables it to learn just what it 

 requires to learn. In the case of human beings, this func- 

 tion of instinct is, in the main, superseded by instruction. 

 All that either instinct or instruction can do is to supply 

 appropriate experiences. How this material will be 

 utilised depends on other factors." 



Mr. William McDougall found himself for the most part 

 in close agreement with Dr. Myers and Prof. Stout. He 

 regarded instinctive processes and intelligent processes as 

 of essentially similar nature, as involving the same funda- 

 mental modes of mental activity, but considered that " we 

 can properl}' and usefully distinguish between mental pro- 

 cesses that are conditioned wholly or mainly by innate 

 dispositions on the one hand, and on the other hand such 

 as are conditioned by dispositions that have been largely 

 built up through the experience of the individual," and 

 that " the words instinctive and intelligent may properly 

 be used to mark this distinction." He objected to Stout's 

 use of the designation intelligent for every process which 

 is capable of producing modification of innately determined 



NO. 2122, VOL. 83] 



modes of behaviour, even when such modification is not, 

 as a fact, brought about. Intelligence is only operative 

 when a modification is effected. Thus the Yucca moth, 

 hiying its eggs in the Yucca flower on a single occasion 

 in' its life, may be said to perform an act which is purely 

 instinctive, having no admixture of intelligence. Prof. 

 Bergson 's view of instinct, presented by Mr. Carr, is not 

 supported by the facts. The work of Dr. and Mrs. 

 Peckham on solitary wasps has shown that instinctive 

 activities are far from being perfect and invariable in 

 nature, and that they may be combined with a (seemingly) 

 high degree of intelligence. In Ammophila the capacity 

 for acquiring and acting upon detailed knowledge of 

 locality is found developed to an extraordinary degree. 

 This development of intellect is all the more remarkable 

 w^hen we consider at what a disadvantage the higher 

 insects are placed compared with the higher mammals in 

 being deprived of all the advantages for training of the 

 intelligence given by a period of youth (play, &c.). 



Bergson 's use of the term sympathy does not seem very 

 appropriate or helpful in many actual cases of instinctive 

 activit}', e.g. that of the paralysing wasp. 



Lloyd Morgan's view that the strictly mechanical inter- 

 pretation of natural processes is the only one permissible 

 to science forces him to the identification of instinctive 

 action with compound reflex action, and causes him to 

 ignore the extremely important conative character exhibited 

 by the process. 



The criterion of being "practically serviceable on the 

 occasion of its first performance " is not sufficient to mark 

 off instinctive activity from reflex action on the one hand, 

 and from intelligent behaviour on the other. 



The small part assigned by most psychologists to 

 instincts in the development and functioning of the human 

 mind is surprising and difficult to understand. Especially 

 is this the case with regard to Prof. Stout's system of 

 psychology, and its explanation would seem to be that 

 Stout limits the application of the term instinct to forms 

 of mental process expressed through innately coordinated 

 motor mechanisms. " Now all our mental processes mani- 

 fest themselves through the agency of preformed motor 

 coordinations, innate or acquired. For Stout, then, as for 

 me (McDougall), instinctive process can be marked off 

 from other modes of behaviour only by reference to the 

 origin of some part of its conditioning factors in the innate 

 constitution of the organism. For Stout the innate 

 factors by which it is marked off are the motor mechanisms 

 only by which the mental process manifests itself in bodily 

 movement ; for me they are also and chiefly the innate 

 disposition by which the whole instinctive mental process 

 is conditioned." The specific conative tendency e^ibited 

 by each instinctive process is a far more important and 

 characteristic feature of the process than the operation of 

 innate motor coordinations. The only reason why Stout 

 selects the latter rather than the former as the differentia 

 of instinctive process is " because the more essential 

 feature, the specific conative tendency, continues to reveal 

 itself at all levels of mental development and throughout 

 the life of the human mind, while the innate motor factor 

 comes clearly into view only in instinctive processes that 

 are relatively pure." 



Another characteristic of purely instinctive activity which 

 Stout has failed to note is the existence of an unmodified 

 innate perceptual disposition which conditions the percep- 

 tion evoking the instinctive reaction. Such innate per- 

 ceptual dispositions continue to be active in the adult 

 human mind, though undoubtedly modified and differenti- 

 ated through experience. 



McDougall summarised his view of instinct as follows : — 

 " A tjpica! example of a purely instinctive action implies 

 the existence in the creature's innate constitution of, first, 

 a specialised perceptual disposition ; secondly, a specific 

 conative tendency that is excited when this perceptual 

 disposition is played upon by the appropriate sense- 

 impression ; and, thirdly, some coordinated system of motor 

 channels through which the conative tendency works 

 towards its satisfaction. The three things belong together ; 

 each implies the other two ; each can subserve the life of 

 the organism or of the species only in conjunction with 

 the other two ; all three together constitute a functional 

 unit which is transmitted as such from generation to 



