THE CONSCIOUS ASPECT 99 
introduced his definition with the words : * “Instinct is reflex 
action into which there is imported the element of conscious- 
ness.” And he emphasized the conscious aspect when he said : 
“The term comprises all those faculties of mind which are con- 
cerned with conscious and adaptive action, antecedent to 
individual experience.” Professor Wundt also lays some stress 
on the conscious accompaniments of instinctive activities which, 
he says,t “differ from the reflexes proper in this, that they are 
accompanied by emotions in the mind, and that their perform- 
ance is regulated by these emotions.” The definitions of other 
writers express or imply the presence of consciousness in differ- 
ing modes and degrees, culminating in the hypothesis of 
inherited knowledge. Douglas Spalding, for example, said t 
that “animals can forget the instinctive knowledge which they 
never learned!” 
Now, the exclusion from our definition of direct reference 
to the conscious aspect must not be taken to imply that 
instinctive behaviour is a mere matter of unconscious automa- 
tism; nor even that it is unprofitable to discuss how much 
consciousness there may be, of what sort, and how distributed. 
All that it does imply is, that the amount, nature, and distribu- 
tion of consciousness cannot well be introduced into a definition 
the object of which is to help us to distinguish certain 
observable types of behaviour from others. In a word, the 
definition given is biological and objective, and is to be accepted 
or rejected without prejudice to such psychological considera- 
tions as those upon which we have now briefly to enter. 
The first thing we have to decide is how much we are to 
include, from the psychological standpoint, under instinct. 
For we may take either a broader or a narrower view of the 
matter ; and which of these we adopt will make much differ- 
ence in our conclusions. Let us first deal with the narrower. 
We have said above that what is hereditary in instinctive 
behaviour is the co-ordination. Now, such co-ordination of 
* “Mental Evolution in Animals,” p. 159. 
+ “Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology,” p. 401. 
+ “Instinct and Acquisition,” Nature, vol, xii., p. 507. 
