THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 211 



obtain as large a supply as possible of the essential 

 sunshine ; in devices, such as traps and flowers, 

 for utilising the juices and services of insects ; in 

 germinating and growing away from, instead of 

 toward, the centre of the earth ; in discriminating 

 between this and that kind of food ; and in a 

 thousand other ways. Plant intelligence is all 

 explicable in terms of chemistry and physics, and 

 is, so far as is known, unaccompanied by conscious- 

 ness. Reflex action is chemical affinity aided by 

 the co-ordinating powers of nerve tissue. The 

 vital processes of all animals, from the lowest to 

 the highest, and many other highly habitual and 

 highly essential operations, are carried on by reflex 

 action. Reflex action in animals, like plant intel- 

 ligence, is unconscious. 



Instinct and reason are conscious. Instinct is 

 inherited intelligence — intelligence manifested in- 

 dependently of, and prior to, experience and 

 instruction. * Instinct,' says Romanes, * is reflex 

 action into which has been imported the element 

 of consciousness ' (i). It is exhibited by the babe 

 when it nurses the mother's breast ; by the chick 

 when it pecks its way out through the shell of the 

 egg ; by animals generally, including man, in their 

 solicitude for their young ; by the parent bird in 

 incubation ; and by all beings when they seek 

 food in obedience to the impulse of hunger. Our 

 conception of the mental processes of non-humans 

 is as yet very primitive, owing to our limited 

 means of information and the erroneous influence 

 on our judgments of traditional ways of thinking; 



14—2 



