INSTINCT AND SENSE-EXPERIENCE. 55 



they are or are not accompanied by consciousness. 

 Under intelligence we place those conscious actions 

 which are more or less modifiable by experience. " * ) 



Therefore, whenever an animal makes use of a for- 

 mer experience or adapts its manner of acting to the 

 changed conditions of its surroundings, its actions are 

 manifestations of intellect; and vice versa, whenever 

 the animal is determined by inherited impulses its ac- 

 tions are merely instinctive. In other words, if we 

 have to decide in a given case whether an animal acts 

 instinctively or intellectually, we must answer the 

 question: "Did any previous or actual experience 

 modify the action or not?" If the answer is affirm- 

 ative, that is to say, if the animal was influenced by 

 experience to adopt an appropriate deviation from its 

 general way of acting, the action is said to be the re- 

 sult of intelligence; if the answer is negative, the ac- 

 tion must be ascribed to instinct. 



What are we to think of this criterion? 



Let us see: A criterion is a sign or characteristic 

 mark which enables us to discriminate with certainty 

 and under all circumstances between two or more ob- 

 jects or actions. Consequently, its first and most es- 

 sential quality consists in this, that the mark or sign 

 of distinction is not common to the objects or actions 

 between which we have to discriminate. Hence, if it 

 can be proved, that there are actions which in spite of 

 modification by experience are undoubtedly of instinc- 

 tive nature, the generally accepted criterion of distinc- 

 tion between instinctive and intellectual activity is 



!) 1. c., p. 231. 



