92 INSTINCT 
tween the means employed and the end attained.”—Romanzs, 
Article Instinct, Encyclopedia Britannica. 
Instinct—‘‘Purposeful action without consciousness of the pur- 
pose.”’—Von Hartmann, The Philosophy of the Unconscious. 
“Instinct is inherited faculty, especially is inherited habit.”— 
Ermer, Organic Evolution. 
“‘Qu’est-ce que l’instinct? Un mot.”—G. Boun. 
“L’Instinct n’est rien.’’-—CoNnpDILLAc. 
The above definitions show how differently instinct has 
been conceived as regards its causation, although as to the 
kind of behavior to which the term is applied there is in 
general a broad basis of agreement. Some modern writers 
would have us discard the term instinct entirely on account 
of its vagueness and because, as commonly used, it carries 
with it certain connotations of which they do not approve. 
“Instinct,” says Bohn, “is a legacy of the past, the middle 
ages, the theologians and the metaphysicians”—a word 
which does not stand for any well-defined reality. Consign 
it therefore to the dust bin, and describe behavior in other 
and more scientific terms. Instinct is a word whose con- 
notation very naturally has varied according to the scientific 
and philosophical views of the writers who have employed it, 
but if we were to reject terms generally on this ground our 
language, even in science, would undergo an embarrassing 
amount of modification. There are few scientific terms, 
especially in psychology, which we should be willing to accept 
to-day with the meanings they had a hundred years ago. 
Stripped of its older metaphysical implications, which 
need not annoy us, and used to designate certain types of 
behavior, the term is a very useful one. It may not be pos- 
sible to define it with precision. It is also difficult to define 
a child, a shrub or a tree. We know with a fair degree of 
clearness what is meant by the statement that nest building 
in birds and comb making in bees are instinctive. The 
