The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 197 



(however it be interpreted), suggest that the stimulus to 

 reaction is sometimes already defined in hereditary 

 transmission. As we have seen in other cases of habits 

 of congenital origin, while the response is congenitally 

 definite, that which evokes the response is to a large 

 extent determined by individual experience. This, how- 

 ever, does not detract from the congenital nature of the 

 responsive activity itself. And, surely, all must have 

 observed a hundred times that dogs have a tendency to 

 behave in just these ways. No one with any experience 

 of dogs can have failed to observe both these types of 

 reaction. They are characteristic of canine nature. They 

 are reactive tendencies, which it needs only the touch of 

 experience to particularize, and to direct on suitable objects. 



What, then, is inherited in such cases ? Must not the 

 reply be — a bodily organization, with congenital powers 

 of response in certain ways, under certain conditions ? 

 And will not this apply, not only to the co-ordinated out- 

 going impulses which give rise to motor activity, but to 

 the outgoing impulses which take effect in visceral action ? 

 You may safely assert that your dog will react in this or 

 that fashion to other dogs in virtue of the innate tendencies 

 of his nature ; but you cannot say what dog will call forth 

 this demeanour or that ; or, if you can do so, it is on 

 different grounds : it is the result of your knowledge of his 

 individual character, or past experience. 



It will be evident from this brief discussion of 

 Tony's emotions that there is an element of complexity 

 and difficulty introduced through the combination of what 

 is congenital and what is acquired. And this is perhaps 

 still more the case with the emotional reactions of adult 



to a butcher. The man at once said that this was his business. It may be 

 urged however, that the so-called hereditary antipathy would probably be 

 more correctly described as a congenital reaction to certain olfactory stimuli. 



