66 THE PLAY OP ANIMALS. 



instinct and reflex action according as consciousness 

 is present or not. * In the opposite direction, he is 

 more cautious than Ziehen,f who accepts the hypothesis 

 of the absolute unconsciousness of instinctive acts. 

 Ziegler is probably influenced here, as on other points, by 

 Herbert Spencer, who thus guardedly expresses himself: 

 " Instinct in its higher forms is probably accompanied 

 by a rudimentary consciousness." I So far I agree with 

 Ziegler, but his avoidance of any definite expression of 

 opinion as to whether consciousness is or is not present 

 is significant in another connection, and here, as I think, 

 he is not entirely in the right. Every instinctive act is a 

 means for preserving the species. This fact gives the 

 question of consciousness a double significance, as Hart- 

 mann's definition, for example, clearly shows: " Instinct 

 is the conscious willing of means to an unconsciously 

 willed end." * 



As concerns the means, that is, the act itself, it 

 is safer, as has been remarked, to avoid the terms 

 " conscious " and " unconscious " altogether. But it 

 seems permissible to say, at least with reference to the 

 end of a particular action, " by instinct we understand 

 the impulse to an action whose end the individual is 

 unconscious of, but which nevertheless furthers the at- 

 tainment of that end." || That is to say, the conscious- 

 ness of an end as such is entirely separable from the in- 

 stinctive act. Ziegler does not leave room for any psy- 

 chic factor, not even a negative one, in his definition. 



* Romanes, Animal Intelligence, 1892, p. 11. Especially in 

 Schneider's book, Der thierische Wille. 



f Th. Ziehen, Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie, p. 12. 

 X H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, p. 195. 



* Hartmann, Philosophic der Unbewussten, i, p. 76. 

 U Schneider, Der thierische Wille, p. 61. 



