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THURSDAY, APRIL to, 1873. 
INSTINCT 
HE very valuable contribution to Psychology made 
by Mr. Spalding in his paper on Instinct (Mac- 
millan’s Magazine for February), and the letters and 
article which have lately appeared in this Journal, will no 
doubt stimulate research, and lead to some rational ex- 
planation of what has hitherto been enveloped in a mist 
of metaphysics. Mr. Spalding has not only proved him- 
self an acute thinker, he has shown a rare ability in de- 
vising experiments, and we may fairly expect that his 
researches will mark anepoch. I am the more grateful 
to him because his instructive results, though seeming to 
contradict, do really furnish experimental confirmation of 
the views put forth in my work, now in the press, wherein 
it is argued that Instinct is /apsed Intelligence : that what 
is now the fixed and fatal action of the organism, was 
formerly a tentative and discriminating (consequently 
intelligent) action: in a word that what is now a con- 
nate tendency was formerly acquired experience. 
There is great need of precise definition of terms. 
What is Instinct? What is Experience? What is In- 
telligence? Twenty different writers indicate twenty 
different things by these terms. They do not distinguish 
between Instinct and Impulse; between Experience 
acquired by the individual, and Experience transmitted 
from ancestors ; between Intelligence, the discernment of 
Likeness and Unlikeness in feelings, and Intellect, the 
discernment of Likeness and Unlikeness in symbols. 
Above all they seldom make clear whether they are treat- 
ing any fact from the psycho/ogica/ or from the psycho- 
genetical point of view, z.c. whether they are describing 
the Anatomy or the Morphology of the Mind. It is, for 
instance, one thing to affirm that our perception of Space 
is a perception necessarily conditioned by our organism, 
and in that sense @ friovz ; another thing to affirm that 
this conditioned structure is itself the evolved result of 
ancestral experiences of Sight, Tuuch, and Motion, and 
in that sense the perception of space is @ fosteriori, The 
point of difference between the empirical and nativistic 
schools may be got rid of by such a precision in the 
question. The vital point will then be between the ad- 
vocates of evolution and the advocates of creation. 
Those who hold that the Organism is evolved, must hold 
that its perceptions (and instincts) are evolved through 
Experience. Those who hold that the Organism is 
created, and was from the“first what we see it now, must 
hold that its perceptions (and instincts) are pre-ordained, 
and have no experiential origin whatever. 
Having thus cleared the ground of a mass of obstruc- 
tion, we may now approach the subject of Instinct. In 
what sense can it be said to be dependent on Experience? 
Obviously this cannot be answered till we are agreed on 
‘the meaning to be assigned to the term Experience. I 
have defined it the registration of Feeling. And what is 
Feeling? It is reaction of the sentient Organism under 
stimulus, This reaction has obviously two factors : the 
structure of the organism, and the nature of the stimulus. 
‘It is not every response of the organ that can be a feeling, 
it is not every feeling that can be an experience. The 
No, 180—VOL, vit. 
secretion of a gland is a response, physiologically similar to 
the response of a sensory organ ; but the former is nota 
feeling, although it enters as an element into the mass of 
Systemic sensation; and the response of a sensory 
organ, although a feeling, will not be an experience 
unless it be vevivad/e; and this revival requires that it 
should be registered in the modification impressed 
on the sentient structure. It is true that rigorously 
speaking no body, not even an inorganic body, can be 
acted on without being modified; every sunbeam that 
beats against the wall a/fers the structure of that wall ; 
but these minute alterations are not only inappreciable 
for the most part, by any means in our power, they are 
also mostly annulled by subsequent alterations. In one 
sense, therefore, no impression ever excites Feeling with- 
out modifying the sentient structure ; but some impres- 
sions, especially when iterated, produce definite and 
permanent modifications; and these are registrations 
capable of revival, z.c. of the feelings registered, so that 
when the organism is stimulated its reaction will be de- 
termined by those past reactions, and the product will be 
a feeling more or less resembling the feelings which were 
formerly produced. Thus we have Feeling as the re- 
action of the Organism; and the Organism itself as a 
structure which has been modified by its reactions on 
external stimuli. What the structure of the Organism is 
at any stage determines what will be the kind of sentient 
reactions it will have. Experience is the registration of 
Feeling, registered in those modifications, which, because 
they are modifications of structure, must have corre- 
sponding activities of Feeling, and from these spring 
Actions. To trace the history of these modifications or 
their feelings is Morphology or Psychogeny ; to describe 
their results is Anatomy or Psychology. 
We cannot be in doubt then whether Instinct is or is 
not dependent on Experience; we can only ask: Is a 
particular action characteristic of a particular animal 
Species, one that the animal has itself /earned to per- 
form through the adaptation of its organs, under the 
guidance of sensible impressions reviving the past im- 
pressions of zfs experience; or an action inevitably 
determined by the reactions of the structure inherited 
from ancestors. so that sensible impressions revive 
ancestral experiences registered in the modifications im- 
pressed on the structure? The answer in each case can 
only be approximative ; and for this reason: until the 
organism has the requisite degree of development for 
the performance of the actions, there can be no mani- 
festation of the instincts, and there are few of the in- 
stincts manifested at birth. 
How, then, shall we define Instinct? How separate 
the actions which are congenitally determined, from those 
which are incidentally determined? Both require the 
indispensable conditions of an appropriate structure and 
appropriate stimuli. It is obvious that we cannot fix 
upon the structure alone ; and yet the congenital tenden- 
cies of that structure must be taken into account; for 
we see instincts not manifested until long after many 
other actions have been acquired—as in the case of the 
sexual instinct. But if congenital tendencies sufficed, we 
should call the flowering of plants at their normal season 
when transplanted to a diferent climate, an instinct. 
Many would say that an action common to an entire 
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