347 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Insight 

 Instinct 



sixth stages which had been already 

 wrought out. CARPENTER Mental Physiol- 

 ogy, bk. i, ch. 2, p. 61. (A., 1900.) 



1696. INSTINCT DYING OF INANI- 

 TION Men without the Desire of Hunting. 

 The latter [hunting] instinct is easily re- 

 stricted by habit to certain objects, which 

 become legitimate "game," while other 

 things are spared. If the hunting instinct 

 be not exercised at all, it may even entirely 

 die out, and a man may enjoy letting a wild 

 creature live, even tho he might easily kill 

 it. Such a type is now becoming frequent. 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 24, p. 415. 

 (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1697. INSTINCT FOLLOWS INFLEX- 

 IBLE ROUTINE The Sphex-wasp.'Flie 

 hutcher-wasps paralyze their prey [that it 

 jnay become food for their larvae]. Fabre 

 removed from a so-called sphex-wasp a 

 killed grasshopper, which it was conveying 

 to its nest and had momentarily laid down 

 at the mouth of the burrow as these in- 

 sects always do on returning with prey, in 

 order to see that nothing has intruded into 

 the burrow during their absence. Fabre 

 carried the dead or paralyzed grasshopper 

 to a considerable distance from the hole. 

 On coming out the insect searched about 

 until it found its prey. It then again car- 

 ried it to the mouth of its burrow, and again 

 laid it down while it once more went in to 

 see that all was right at home. Again 

 Fabre removed the grasshopper, and so on 

 for forty times in succession the sphex 

 never omitting to go through its fixed 

 routine of examining the interior of its bur- 

 row every time that it brought the prey to 

 its mouth. ROMANES Animal Intelligence, 

 ch. 4, p. 181. (A., 1899.) 



1 698. INSTINCT INDEPENDENT OF 

 EDUCATION Automatic Adaptation to Ends. 

 Instinct is usually defined as the faculty 

 of acting in such a way as to produce cer- 

 tain ends, without foresight of the ends, and 

 without previous education in the perform- 

 ance. That instincts, as thus ^defined, exist 

 on an enormous scale in the animal kingdom 

 needs no proof. They are the functional 

 correlatives of structure. With the presence 

 of a certain organ goes, one may say, almost 

 always a native aptitude for its use. [In 

 his work on " Instinct," P. A. Chadbourne 

 says] : 



" Has the bird a gland for the secretion of 

 oil? She knows instinctively how to press 

 the oil from the gland, and apply it to the 

 feather. Has the rattlesnake the grooved 

 tooth and gland of poison ? He knows with- 

 out instruction how to make both structure 

 and function most effective against his 

 enemies. Has the silkworm the function of 

 secreting the fluid silk ? At the proper time 

 she winds the cocoon such as she has never 

 seen, as thousands before have done, and 

 thus, without instruction, pattern, or ex- 

 perience, forms a safe abode for herself in 

 the period of transformation. Has the hawk 



talons ? She knows by instinct how to wield 

 them effectively against the helpless quar- 

 ry." JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 24, p. 

 383. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1699. INSTINCT IN MAN Existing, 

 out Controlled. It is often said that man 

 is distinguished from the lower animals by 

 having a much smaller assortment of native 

 instincts and impulses than they, but this 

 is a great mistake. . . If we compare 

 him with the mammalia, we are forced to 

 confess that he is appealed to by a much 

 larger array of objects than any other mam- 

 mal; that his reactions on these objects are 

 characteristic and determinate in a very 

 high degree. The monkeys, and especially 

 the anthropoids, are the only beings that 

 approach him in their analytic curiosity 

 and width of imitativeness. His instinctive 

 impulses, it is true, get overlaid by the sec- 

 ondary reactions due to his superior reason- 

 ing power; but thus man loses the simply 

 instinctive demeanor. But the life of in- 

 stinct is only disguised in him, not lost. 

 JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 6, p. 43. (H. 

 H. & Co., 1900.) 



17 GO. Less Imperious 



than in the Inferior Animals Differences 

 Exceed Resemblances The Migrating Im- 

 pulse. To measure the differences between 

 beast and man is really more difficult than 

 tracing their resemblances. One plain mark 

 of the higher intellectual rank of man is 

 that he is less dependent on instinct than 

 the animals which migrate at a fixed season, 

 or build nests of a fixed and complicated 

 pattern peculiar to their kind. Man has 

 some instincts plainly agreeing with those 

 of inferior animals, such as the child's un- 

 taught movements to ward off danger, and 

 the parental affection which preserves the 

 offspring during the first defenseless period 

 of life. But if man were possessed by a re- 

 sistless longing to set off wandering south- 

 ward before winter, or to build a shelter of 

 boughs laid in a particular way, this would 

 be less beneficial to his species than the use 

 of intelligent judgment adapting his actions 

 to climate, supply of food, danger from 

 enemies, and a multitude of circumstances 

 differing from district to district, and 

 changing from year to year. TYLOR An- 

 thropology, ch. 2, p. 50. (A., 1899.) 



17O1. INSTINCT, LIMITATIONS OF 



Bees Know Locality Rather than Hive. 

 Mr. George Turner found that when he re- 

 moved a beehive only a yard or two from its 

 accustomed site, the bees, on returning 

 home, flew in swarms around the latter, and 

 for a long time were unable to find the hive. 

 And several other similar cases might be 

 adduced. Lastly, Thompson says: 



It is highly remarkable that they [bees] 

 know their hive more from its locality than 

 from its appearance, for, if it be removed 

 during their absence and a similar one be 

 substituted, they enter the strange one. If 

 the position of a hive be changed, the bees 



