126 Habit and Instinct. 



CHAPTEE VI. 



THE RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR. 



THERE is scarcely anything more wonderful in the whole 

 range of biological phenomena than the series of changes 

 which take place during the incubation of the egg. On the 

 surface of the central mass of yolk, when the egg is laid, 

 there is a little patch of somewhat lighter colour. Placed 

 under the hen, or in the drawer of an incubator and kept 

 at a temperature of about 104 Fahr. for three weeks or 

 so, such a transformation occurs that there emerges a little 

 chick which, in about twenty-four hours, will be actively 

 pecking at small objects, selecting some and rejecting 

 others. Unless we are prepared to assert that birds are 

 throughout their lives unconscious automata, mere machines 

 of marvellously cunning make, we must regard the little 

 chick, a day old, that is every moment gaining fresh 

 experience of the world into which it is born, as endowed 

 with consciousness. It not only seems to feel, but to shape 

 its actions in accordance with what it has already felt in 

 the few hours of its active life ; seeking the repetition of 

 certain experiences and avoiding the recurrence of others. 

 It appears to be guided by some such consciousness as 

 that by which we too are guided in our own actions. The 

 consciousness may lack much of that complexity which 

 human consciousness presents ; it may be wanting in 

 certain features which for us are distinctive; it may be 

 altogether more naive and rudimentary. But it suffices 



