Translation from Von Hartmann 97 



instincts in action. This illustration might perhaps be 

 allowed to pass (if we also suppose that entirely different 

 keys can give out the same sound) if instincts could only 

 •be compared with disiinctly timed notes, so that one and 

 the same instinct acted always in the same manner on 

 the rising of the motive which should set it in action. This, 

 however, is not so ; for it is the blind unconscious purpose 

 of the instinct that is alone constant, the instinct itself — 

 that is to say, the will to make use of certain means — 

 varying as the means that can be most suitably em- 

 ploj^ed vary under varying circumstances. 



In this we condemn the theory which refuses to recog- 

 nise unconscious purpose as present in each individual 

 case of instinctive action. For he who maintains instinct 

 to be the result of a mechanism of mind, must suppose 

 a special and constant mechanism for each variation and 

 modification of the instinct in accordance with exterior 

 circumstances,^ that is to say, a new string giving a note 

 with a new tone must be inserted, and this would involve 

 the mechanism in endless complication. But the fact that 

 the purpose is constant notwithstanding all manner of 

 variation in the means chosen by the instinct, proves that 

 there is no necessity for the supposition of such an elaborate 

 mental mechanism — the presence of an unconscious pur- 

 pose being sufficient to explain the facts. The purpose of 

 the bird, for example, that has laid her eggs is constant, 

 and consists in the desire to bring her young to maturity. 

 When the temperature of the air is insufficient to effect 

 this, she sits upon her eggs, and only intermits her sittings 

 in the warmest countries ; the mammal, on the other 

 hand, attains the fulfilment of its instinctive purpose with- 



^ " Hiermit ist der Annahme das Urtheil gesprochen, welche die 

 unbewusste Vorstellung des Zwecks in jedem einzelnen Falle vor- 

 wiegt ; denn woUte man nun noch die Vorstellung des Geistes- 

 mechanismus festhalten, so miisste fiir jede Variation und Modifica- 

 tion des Instincts, nach den ausseren Umstanden, eine besondere 

 constante Vorrichtung . . . eingefiigt sein." — Philosophy of the 

 Unconscwiis, 3d ed., p. 74. 



H 



