384 PSYCHOLOOT. 



ing the facts leads to far clearer results. The actions loecaU 

 instinctive all conform to the general reflex type ; tliey are called 

 forth by determinate sensory stimuli in contact with the 

 animal's body, or at a distance in his environment. The 

 cat runs after the mouse, runs or shows fight before the 

 dog, avoids falling from walls and trees, shuns fire and 

 water, etc., not because he has any notion either of life or 

 of death, or of self, or of preservation. He has probably at- 

 tained to no one of these conceptions in such a way as to re- 

 act definitely upon it. He acts in each case separately, 

 and simpl}' because he cannot help it ; being so framed that 

 when that particular running thing called a mouse appears 

 in his field of vision he must pursue ; that when that par- 

 ticular barking and obstreperous thing called a dog appears 

 there he m^nst retire, if at a distance, and scratch if close by ; 

 that he m^nst withdraw his feet from water and his face 

 from flame, etc. His nervous system is to a great extent a 

 preorganized bundle of such reactions — they are as fatal as 

 sneezing, and as exactly correlated to their special excitants 

 as it is to its own. Although the naturalist may, for his own 

 convenience, class these reactions under general heads, he 

 must not forget that in the animal it is a particular sensation 

 or perception or image which calls them forth. 



At first this view astounds us by the enormous number 

 of special adjustments it supposes animals to possess ready- 

 made in anticipation of the outer things among which they 

 are to dwell. Can mutual dependence be so intricate and 

 go so far? Is each thing born fitted to particular other 

 things, and to them exclusively, as locks are fitted to their 

 keys '? Undoubtedl}^ this must be believed to be so. Each 

 nook and cranny of creation, down to our very skin and 

 entrails, has its living inhabitants, with organs suited to 

 the place, to devour and digest the food it harbors and to 

 meet the dangers it conceals ; and the minuteness of adap- 

 tation thus shown in the waj* of structure knows no bounds. 

 Even so are there no bounds to the minuteness of adapta- 

 tion in the way of conduct which the several inhabitants 

 display. 



The older writings on instinct are inefi'ectual wastes of 

 words, because their authors never came down to this defi- 



