ioo MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



it grasps the final purpose and meaning of conduct. 

 Clearly also, as this development proceeds, the need for 

 detailed determination of response by heredity disappears. 



We may perhaps make the matter clearer by symbolis- 

 ing the whole process somewhat in this fashion. Let A 

 be the beginning and z the final purpose of a life process. 

 Pure instinct proceeds from A to z through a uniform 

 series of stages B, c 3 D, &c. If the conditions for any 

 one of these fail, the instinct is wrecked. Fully adequate 

 intelligence makes z its goal from the beginning, and is 

 indifferent whether it reaches it through B, c, D, or 

 through any other intermediaries, b, c, d, #, <y, 8. Nascent 

 intelligence acting " within the instinct " grasps a proximate 

 end e.g., at the stage A it aims at c, and if the conditions 

 leading to B are not present, may substitute $ ; or, it may 

 be, the stage B, except as a means to c, drops out 

 altogether. As intelligence develops, remoter stages 

 become direct objects of action, the means cease to be 

 prescribed by hereditary tendency, and instead are chosen 

 with increasing freedom from the possibilities present. 1 



At this stage the impulse to do a certain thing is fixed 

 by heredity, but the means of doing it are not so fixed, 

 but are in part or altogether left to the individual to find 

 out for himself. On this basis it appears at once that the 

 conception of instinct becomes very elastic. The thing 

 to be done may be something which only requires one 

 step to effect it. If so, it is but one degree removed from 

 the reflex response. Or it may be very remote, and a 

 number of steps must be devised to work it out. Or, 

 lastly, it may be of a general character, and then the 

 circumstances of the individual may not only determine 

 the means, but may give its whole concrete filling to the 

 end itself. Thus in man the desire to marry is based on 

 an instinct, but the love of one woman is based on 



1 To put the same idea in more popular fashion, we may say that the 

 youth's consciousness when he first goes courting, is to be expressed, not 

 in the form, " I want a wife and family," but in the words, " I must just 

 see her to-day." Similarly, attributing language to the wasp struggling 

 with the spider, we must suppose her to say to herself, not " If I don't 

 give it this spider my grub when it hatches will starve," but, " I must get 

 this spider into this hole"; and if you asked her why, the mere gift of 

 language alone would not enable her to tell you. 



