Consciousness and Instinct. 



then, that the phrase " inherited experience " is merely a 

 condensed expression for the hereditary organic effects, 

 if such there be, wrought through experience, we are forced 

 to conclude that in the case of the first peck the chick 

 has no experience in the light of which its action could 

 be guided and controlled. If consciousness be present 

 it is not yet effective. And our second hypothesis is 

 thus placed out of court. 



We are, therefore, thrown back upon our third 

 possibility — that the automatic response gives rise to 

 consciousness in the light of which the chick's future 

 activities may be guided and controlled. On this view 

 the first peck — and it must be remembered that we are 

 concentrating our attention on the very first occurrence 

 of an instinctive response in the course of individual life 

 — though it is an organic and automatic response, never- 

 theless affords data to consciousness ; it thus provides 

 the initial experience by which subsequent efforts at 

 pecking may be guided and controlled. Is not this, 

 however, it may be asked, in contradiction of what 

 was stated a few pages back, that there is much to be 

 said in favour of the view that the outgoing currents 

 as such have no conscious accompaniments in the case 

 of the first performance of an instinctive act ? No. The 

 contradiction is only apparent, not real. 



It is, indeed, highly probable that all the primary data 

 which contribute to the building up of experience are 

 afforded through the intermediation of incoming nerve - 

 currents. Grouping these in a convenient but not 

 logically exclusive manner— for the motor sensations and 

 those of the skin include elements supplied by touch — we 

 may say that such data are supplied first from the organs 

 of special sense, those of sight, hearing, taste, smell, 

 touch, the temperature senses, and the sense of direction ; 



