CHAPTER III. 

 Instinct and Consciousness of Finality. 



I NSTINCTI VE actions are essentially of a purposeful 

 and seemingly intelligent character being directed, 

 as we have shown, toward the welfare of individual 

 and species. We must now examine what relation 

 instinctive actions have to the agent's cognition and 

 appetency? For the answer to this question will de- 

 termine the specific character of instinctive actions in 

 contradistinction to all other kinds of actions performed 

 by man or animal. Hence we ask whether we are 

 justified to infer that the final tendency which is evi- 

 dently manifested in the case of the instincts is as such 

 or in itself an object of cognition and volition on the 

 part of the agent. Some believe that it is impossible to 

 answer this question in a satisfactory manner. Ladd 

 says of instinctive actions that "they seem like the 

 deeds of intelligent will striving to realize ideas held 

 up by imagination and thought." But, "how far an 

 actual examination of the data of consciousness justi- 

 fies the seeming, is a question which can probably 

 never be answered satisfactorily. " l ) 



') George Trumbul Ladd, Psychology, descriptive and 

 explanatory, 4. ed., New York, 1903, p. 598. 



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