170 BIOLOGY: GENERAL AND MEDICAL 



but instinctively flies, without learning, recognizes its 

 sexual mate, never having seen one before, nourishes 

 itself by sipping the nectar from flowers with its long 

 tongue, and lays its eggs conveniently to the vegetation 

 upon which its future progeny are to feed. 



All this is so perfectly adapted to the ends of caterpillar 

 and moth life as to make it appear as though the cater- 

 pillar knew that it was only by eating that it could spin 

 its cocoon, knew that it must spin the cocoon to protect 

 itself against enemies and against the cold of winter dur- 

 ing its pupation, knew that it would become a moth, 

 as a moth knew that it must mate and lay its eggs, etc., 

 and continually impresses us as being the result of con- 

 scious volition based upon such knowledge. But the 

 briefest reflection upon the matter is sufficient to show that 

 neither the caterpillar nor the moth can know the future 

 with reference to any of the instinctive acts performed. 



Romanes held that instinct always involved a mental 

 element, while reflex action did not, and therefore the 

 mental element is consciousness. He supposed that the 

 time element was too short to permit consciousness in re- 

 flex action, but long enough to permit it in instinctive ac- 

 tion. To him instinctive action was "hereditary memory. " 



It has been said that "primary instincts result from the 

 natural selection of actions which although never intelli- 

 gent, yet happen to have been of benefit to the animals 

 which first performed them. Secondary instincts result 

 from the hereditary transmission of habits of actions 

 originally intelligent." George H. Lewes considers such 

 instincts to be cases of "lapsed intelligence." 



James defines instinct as "the faculty of acting in such 

 a way as to produce certain ends, without foresight of the 

 ends and without previous education in the performance." 



Lloyd Morgan says, "Instincts are congenital adaptive 

 and coordinated activities of relative complexity and in- 

 volving the behavior of the organism as a whole." Par- 

 melee defines them as "inherited combinations of reflexes 

 which have been integrated by the central nervous system 



