100 Unconscious Memory 



which prompts the bee to build hexagonal prisms in the 

 middle of her comb something of an actually distinct charac- 

 ter from that which impels her to build pentagonal ones at 

 the sides ? Are there two separate kinds of thing, one of 

 which induces birds under certain circumstances to sit 

 upon their eggs, while another leads them under certain 

 other circumstances to refrain from doing so ? And does 

 this hold good also with bees when they at one time kill 

 their brethren without mercy and at another grant them 

 their lives ? Or with birds when they construct the kind 

 of nest peculiar to their race, and, again, any special 

 provision which they may think fit under certain cir- 

 cumstances to take ? If it is once granted that the normal 

 and the abnormal manifestations of instinct — and they 

 are often incapable of being distinguished — spring from a 

 single source, then the objection that the modification is 

 due to conscious knowledge will be found to be a suicidal 

 one later on, so far as it is directed against instinct generally. 

 It may be sufficient here to point out, in anticipation of 

 remarks that will be found in later chapters, that instinct 

 and the power of organic development involve the same 

 essential principle, though operating under different cir- 

 cumstances — the two melting into one another without 

 an}^ definite boundary between them. Here, then, we 

 have conclusive proof that instinct does not depend upon 

 organisation of body or brain, but that, more truly, the 

 organisation is due to the nature and manner of the 

 instinct. 



On the other hand, we must now return to a closer 

 consideration of the conception of a psychical mechanism.^ 

 And here we find that this mechanism, in spite of its ex- 

 plaining so much, is itself so obscure that we can hardly 

 form any idea concerning it. The motive enters the mind 



1 " Dagegen haben wir niinmehr unseren Blick noch einmal 

 scharfer auf den Begriff eines psychischen IMechanismus zu richtcn, 

 iind da zeigt sich, dass derselbe, abgesehen davon, wie viel er erk- 

 lart, so dunkel ist, dass man sich kaum etwas dabei denken kann." 

 — Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 76. 



