ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 209 



air), and there is no intelligence in which some traces of 

 instinct are not to be discovered. 



Intelligence uses unorganised instruments — tools; instinct 

 uses inborn organised instruments. The innate knowledge in 

 instinct is of things, of particular pieces of matter ; the innate 

 knowledge in intelligence is of relations, of forms. Instinct 

 implies intimate and full awareness of a particular configura- 

 tion of things ; intelligence makes frames applicable to many 

 things. If instinct has signs or words, they are adherent, 

 ^' invariably attached to a certain object or a certain opera- 

 tion ". Intelligence has mobile signs, which can pass from 

 things to ideas, and this language has been a great liberator. 

 In short, instinct and intelligence are quite different expres- 

 sions of life. As to the much-debated question whether in- 

 stinct is conscious or not. Professor Bergson holds that there 

 may be lively consciousness in some cases, and that it may be 

 nullified in others. Consciousness is the light that plays 

 around the zone of possible actions, in the interval between 

 representation and action; it is associated with hesitation 

 and choice. Therefore since there is much choice in intelli- 

 gent behaviour and little in instinctive behaviour, the latter 

 tends to be less conscious than the former. 



The position that instinctive behaviour is on a different 

 evolutionary tack from intelligent behaviour may be defended 

 apart from Professor Bergson's particular view of the differ- 

 ence. When we observe a spider executing an extraordinarily 

 complex and sharply punctuated series of movements which 

 result in a web and doing this effectively the very first time, 

 we seem to be in a world different from that of intelligence. 

 And again when we observe insects continuing to go through 

 a laborious routine which has lost all its point, and from 

 bondage to which the least modicum of intelligence would 



