THE NATURAL 



CHAPTER XIX 



INSTINCT 



Instinct. Can one oppose it to intelligence? Instinct 

 in man. Primordiality of intelligence. Instinct's con- 

 servative role. Modifying role of intelligence. In- 

 telligence and consciousness. Parity of animal and 

 human instinct. Mechanical character of the instinc- 

 tive act. Instinct modified by intelligence. Habit of 

 work creates useless work. Objections to the identi- 

 fication of instinct and intelligence taken from life oj 

 insects. 



THE question of instinct is perhaps the most nerve- 

 racking there is. Simple minds think they have solved 

 it when they have set against this word the other word: 

 intelligence. That is merely the elementary position of 

 the problem. Not only does it explain nothing, but it 

 opposes all explanations. If instinct and intelligence are 

 not phenomena of the same order, reducible one to the 

 other, the problem is insoluble and we will never know 

 what instinct is, nor what is intelligence. 



In the vulgar contrast one overhears the considerable 

 naivete that animals have instinct and man, intelligence. 

 This error, pure rhetoric, has prevented, up to the pres- 

 ent, not the answer to the question which still seems a 

 long way off, but the scientific exposure of the question 

 itself. It includes but two formulae: Either instinct is a 

 fructification of intelligence; or intelligence is an aug- 

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