CHAPTER VI 



INSTINCT 1 



i . WE were taught in our childhood that man had reason, 

 while animals had instinct. What instinct precisely was, 

 was not, so far as my own memory goes, made particularly 

 clear. But it was generally understood to be a somewhat 

 mysterious power, the limits of which were exceedingly 

 ill-defined, while its workings were undoubtedly a con- 

 spicuous instance of that Providential ordering of things 

 whereby the fly is endowed with wings to escape the spider, 

 and the spider with jaws to devour the fly. I cannot find 

 a better statement of the traditional, popular, and, one 

 may say, pious conception of instinct than that given by 

 Captain Marryat's Masterman Ready a work written 

 for edification. 



" c Instinct in animals, William,' continued Mr. Seagrave, c is 

 a feeling which compels them to perform certain acts without 

 previous thought or reflection ; this instinct is in full force at the 

 moment of their birth ; it is the guidance of the Almighty's hand 

 unseen ; it was therefore perfect in the beginning, and has never 

 varied. The swallow built her nest, the spider its web, the bee 

 formed its comb, precisely in the same way four thousand years 

 ago as they do now.' " 



It may be said to be the breakdown of this conception 

 which made animal psychology possible as a science. As 



1 The following chapter was written before seeing Mr. Lloyd Morgan's 

 final expression of his views in Animal Behaviour, with which I am glad 

 to find myself in close agreement. My debt to him, however, is none the 

 less, since the chapter is largely based upon his earlier work. 



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