CHAP. X 



Instinct 157 



yet it may well be said to avoid the fire instinctively. It is 

 obvious that, if we agree to use the term as defined, we 

 must call all the actions of the lower animals, whose con- 

 sciousness has never risen to the level of perceptual infer- 

 ence, instinctive. This definition is based upon the assump- 

 tion that we can determine the conscious states of animals ; 

 but, as we have repeatedly said, it is only within very wide 

 limits that we can with any certainty do this. The inten- 

 tion, however, is to preclude all those actions which are 

 certainly or probably rational, and at the same time include 

 adaptive reflex actions. 



Mr. Herbert Spencer has defined instinct as compound 

 reflex action, while Mr. Romanes separates it from reflex 

 action and from reason as follows : — 



" Reflex action is non-mental neuro-muscular adjustment 

 due to the inherited mechanism of the nervous system, 

 which is found to respond to particular and often-recurring 

 stimuli, by giving rise to particular movements of an 

 adaptive though not of an intentional kind." 



** Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported 

 the element of consciousness. The term is therefore a 

 generic one, comprismg all those faculties of mind which 

 are concerned in consciousness and adaptive action, 

 antecedent to individual experience, without necessary 

 knowledge of the relation between means employed and 

 ends attained, but similarly performed under similar and 

 frequently-recurring circumstances by all the individuals of 

 the same species." 



" Reason or intelligence is the faculty which is con- 

 cerned in the intentional adaptation of means to ends. It 

 therefore implies the conscious knowledge of the relation 

 between means employed and ends attained, and may be 

 exercised in adaptation to circumstances novel alike to the 

 experience of the individual and that of the species." 



Mr. Romanes therefore separates reflex action from 

 instinctive action by limiting the term instinct to those 

 actions which are, as a matter of fact, conscious reflexes. 

 His definition is open to objection on the same ground that 

 ours is, only in a greater degree ; for it is easier to deter- 



