Consciousness and Instinct. 137 



as we have endeavoured clearly to distinguish — between 

 instinct as congenital and habit as acquired, we must not 

 lose sight of the fact that there is much interaction 

 between instinct and habit, so that the first exhibition of 

 a deferred instinct may well be carried out in close and 

 inextricable association with the habits which, at the period 

 of life in question, have already been acquired. 



Accepting this view, at any rate provisionally, we may 

 now proceed to ask what is the nature of that conscious 

 impulse which is commonly assumed to accompany the 

 performance of an instinctive activity. In truth we do not 

 know and can only conjecture on general grounds. Indeed, 

 the presence of any such impulse as a psychological factor 

 is wholly conjectural. We see a chick pecking at a grain 

 of corn, and say that it has an instinctive impulse to 

 respond to the stimulus in this way. We place a tiny 

 moorhen or duckling in the water and see it swim off ; and 

 say that the touch of water on the breast calls forth 

 an instinctive impulse to paddle. We observe that the 

 larva of the great water-beetle leaves the pond and buries 

 itself in damp earth, and again attribute its behaviour 

 to the promptings of an instinctive impulse. It may be 

 that such a psychological impulse is present in each case. 

 It would certainly be hazardous to deny its presence. But 

 we know very little about it ; and perhaps the safest course 

 is to look at the matter from a physiological and organic 

 point of view, leaving the question of the possible psycho- 

 logical accompaniment an open one. Let us, however, 

 first see what the physiological conditions are. 



The psychology of impulse would seem to be in out- 

 line somewhat as follows. In matters of human conduct 

 impulsive action is contrasted with the actions which are 

 performed in distinct reference to motives. Thus, impulsive 

 behaviour is distinguished from deliberate conduct, the 



