SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OF ALBINO RAT 149 



5. The adequate activating stimuli 



Analysis of the activation of the copulatory act is not suffi- 

 ciently advanced, as yet, to enable one to define accurately the 

 stimuli adequate to evoke the copulatory response on the first 

 occasion of its appearance. It may be said, however, on the 

 basis of available data, that the adequate stimuli are probably 

 both mechanical and thermal in nature, and that they are almost 

 certainly mediated through the cutaneous receptors and the 

 receptors of deep sensibility. In some way the movements of 

 the female ordinarily supply the stimuli which under the proper 

 conditions initiate the act. The effectiveness of these stimuli 

 is assured, as will be shown later, only after certain internal 

 factors have done their work toward preparing the receptor 

 effector mechanism for response to this particular pattern of 

 stimulation. 



6. Fundamental need of more experimental data on congenital 



behavior 



Heretofore no special comment as to the bearing this study has 

 on the current discussions of "instinct" has been given. The 

 use of this term is unnecessary in the exposition of experimental 

 data; furthermore, its use is undesirable in this connection be- 

 cause of the difficulty in so defining the term as to disentangle it 

 from its many obsolete and unscientific attachments. 



It must be obvious to all who have reviewed recent discussions 

 of the term "instinct" that the chief cause of our inability to 

 elucidate the field of congenital activity cannot be attributed 

 primarily, or even in large measure, to the general abuse of the 

 term, "instinct," or any of its equivalents. Neither is it 

 due primarily to faulty interpretations of the past or dep- 

 rivation of plausible interpretations just recently brought for- 

 ward. The cause is far more fundamental. The difficulties 

 cannot be obviated by discussion alone. They must be over- 

 come through experimentation. The paramount need at the 

 present time is a broader factual acquaintance with the detailed 

 nature and operation of congenital behavior mechanisms. It 



