240 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



element of " consciousness ". Mr. Reid would define it as 

 follows : " The faculty which is concerned in the con- 

 scious adaption of means to ends, by virtue of inborn 

 inherited knowledge and ways of thinking and acting ". 



He then gives an example : " The young alligator or 

 the young turtle instinctively seeks the water on emerging 

 from the egg, i.e., they seek it by virtue of their inborn 

 and inherited knowledge and ways of thinking and acting. 

 Instinct is clearly transmissible." ^ 



In this case Instinct seems synonymous with inherited 

 memory of the water as the medium in which the parental 

 alligator and turtle lived. 



But numerous instincts— z>., at least habits, which 

 would be now called "instinctive," can be grouped or 

 classified with what must have been " reasonable " acts 

 and done through " conscious adaption of means to ends ". 

 I will take one or two instances. 



Little pigs go at once to the sow's teats. That is 

 instinct ; but the sucking process itself is regarded as due 

 to rejiex action. The calf's habit of butting the udder 

 is common to all and can only be instinctive ; certainly 

 it is not taught to do so by the mother cow. 



Prof A. Newton regards the instinct of the cuckoo in 

 putting its egg in the nest of some other bird as an in- 

 herited habit. " Everyone who has sufficiently studied 

 the habits of animals will admit the tendency of some of 

 these habits to become hereditary. That there is a 

 reasonable probability of each cuckoo most commonly 

 putting her eggs in the nest of the same species of bird, 

 and of this habit being transmitted to her posterity, does 

 not seem to be a very violent supposition," ^ 



Mr. O. H. Latter after criticising the above observes : 



^Ob. cit., p. 137. ^Dictionary of Birds, p. 123. 



