310 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

 a. Instinct Precedes Intelligence. 



The view here taken places the primary roots of instinct in 

 the constitutional activities of protoplasm * and regards instinct 

 in every stage of its evolution as action depending essentially 

 upon organization. It places instinct before intelligence in 

 order of development, and is thus in accord with the broad 

 facts of the present distribution and relations of instinct and 

 intelligence, instinct becoming more general as we descend the 

 scale, while intelligence emerges to view more and more as 

 we ascend to the higher orders of animal life. It relieves us of 

 the great inconsistencies involved in the theory of instinct as 

 " lapsed intelligence." Instincts are universal among animals, 

 and that cannot be said of intelligence. It ill accords with any 

 theory of evolution, or with known facts, to make instinct de- 

 pend upon intelligence for its origin; for if that were so, we 

 should expect to find the lowest animals free from instinct and 

 possessed of pure intelligence. In the higher forms we should 

 expect to see intelligence lapsing more and more into pure 

 instinct. As a matter of fact, we see nothing of the kind. 

 The lowest forms act by instinct so exclusively that we fail to 

 get decided evidence of intelligence. In higher forms not a 

 single case of intelligence lapsing into instinct is known. In 

 forms that give indubitable evidence of intelligence we do not 

 see conscious reflection crystallizing into instinct, but we do 

 find instinct coming more and more under the sway of intelli- 



1 Professor Loeb* refers instinct back to " (i) polar differences in the chemical 

 constitution in the egg substance, and (2) the presence of such substances in the egg 

 as determine heliotropic, chemotropic, stereotropic, and similar phenomena of irri- 

 tability." According to this view, the power to respond to stimuli lies in unorgan- 

 ized chemical substances, and the same powers exist in the adult as in the egg, 

 because the same chemical substances are present. Organization serves at all 

 stages merely as a mechanical means of giving definite directions to responses. 



The view I have taken regards instinctive action as organic action, whatever 

 be the stage of manifestation. The egg differs from the adult in having an organ- 

 ization of a very simple primary order, and correspondingly simple powers of 

 response. Instinct and organization are, to me, two aspects of one and the same 

 thing, hence both have ontogenetic and phylogenetic development. 



*" Egg Structure and the Heredity of Instincts," The Monist, vol. vii, July, 1897. 



