INSTINCT. 393 



tuuity of application usually deciding the issue. The animal 

 that exhibits them loses the ' instinctive ' demeanor and appears 

 to lead a life of hesitation and choice, an intellectual life ; 

 not, however, because he has no instincts — rather because he has 

 so many that they block each other's path. 



Thus, then, A\dthout troubling ourselves about the words 

 instinct and reason, we may coutidently say that however 

 uncertain man's reactions upon his environment may some- 

 times seem in comparison witli those of lower creatures, the 

 uncertainty is probably not due to their possession of any 

 principles of action which he lacks. On the contrary, man 

 possesses all the impulses that they have, and a great many more 

 besides. In other words, there is no material antagonism 

 between instinct and reason. Reason, per se, can inhibit 

 no impulses ; the only thing that can neutralize an impulse 

 is an impulse the other way. Reason may, however, make 

 an infererice ivhich will excite the imagination so as to set loose 

 the impulse the other way ; and thus, though the animal 

 richest in reason might be also the animal richest in in- 

 stinctive impulses too, he would never seem the fatal au- 

 tomaton which a merely instinctive animal would be. 



Let us now turn to human impulses with a little more 

 detail. All we have ascertained so far is that impulses of 

 an originally instinctive character may exist, and yet not 

 betray themselves by automatic fatality of conduct. But 

 in man what impulses do exist? In the light of what has 

 been said, it is obvious that an existing impulse may not 

 always be superficially apparent even when its object is 

 there. And we shall see that some impulses may be masked 

 by causes of which Ave have not yet spoken. 



TWO PRLNCIPLES OF NON-UNIFOKMITY IN INSTINCTS. 



Were one devising an abstract scheme, nothing would 

 be easier than to discover from an animal's actions jiist how 

 many instincts he possessed. He would react in one way 

 only upon each class of objects with which his life had to 

 deal ; he would react in identically the same way upon 

 every specimen of a class ; and he would react invariably 

 during his whole life. There would be no gaps among hia 



