INSTINCT 243 



advance in plants and animals, and the cosmic changes which accompany them, are not the outcome of accident, but 

 of pre-arrangement and design. This ensures uniformity and prevents confusion. While there is a well-marked 

 tendency to advance, progress is at times interrupted. In such cases not only is there no advance but there is 

 deterioration, followed, in not a few instances, by extinction. Here we have the rule and the exception. Plants 

 and animals, permanent to an extraordinary degree, even in their details, at times reach high-water mark, after which 

 they retrogress and partly or wholly disappear. This should not happen according to the doctrine of evolution and 

 " natural selection," where the fittest survive in an unbroken, continuous hue ; all plants and animals being derived 

 from a primordial cell and its representatives. There should, according to natural selection and evolution, be no 

 gaps in the flora and fauna, geologically or otherwise. The missing links should be found somewhere. If plants 

 and animals are originally derived from one stem, failure in one line should be made good by another line : the trail 

 should never be lost. The subject of " natural selection " is fully discussed further on. 



§ 48. Instinct. 



This term has been variously defined. 



According to Webster it is a natural inward impulse ; an unconscious, involuntary, or unreasoning prompting 

 to any mode of action, whether bodily or mental, without a distinct appreciation of the end or object to be accom- 

 plished : a natural unreasoning impulse by which an animal is guided to the performance of any action, without 

 thought of improvement in the method. 



According to Paley it is a propensity prior to experience, and independent of instruction. 



According to Whately it is a bUnd tendency to some mode of action, independent of any consideration, on the 

 part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads. 



According to Sir W^ilham Hamilton it is an agent which performs blindly and ignorantly a work of inteUigence 

 and knowledge. 



There is perhaps no word in the English language which has been more vaguely employed and interpreted, and 

 which has introduced more confusion in physiological and psychological problems. Nor is this to be wondered at 

 considering the nature of the definitions given of it. These, for the most part, involve a contradiction in terms. 

 They speak of what are virtually intelligent acts performed blindly, unconsciously, unintentionally, and without 

 previous knowledge, training, and experience. With such a medley of meaning, misapprehension and confusion 

 are inevitable. 



It is quite evident that intelligence and consciousness in one form or other, and at one period or other, must be 

 predicated of every instinctive act. Either the animal or its ancestors must be regarded as conscious and intelligent 

 when they arrange and devise means to ends, or the Creator must act directly through them. The so-called 

 instinctive acts are born of intelligence and consciousness, and the instinctive habit is produced by repetition in the 

 individual. In all instinctive acts there is the element of design, but design implies a conscious, intelUgent Designer, 

 either within or without the animal which acquires and avails itself of the instinctive habit. There is direct proof 

 in the higher animals that the so-called instinctive acts in the lower animals are produced originally by intellectual 

 conscious efforts frequently repeated. The instinctive or automatic acts in man are so produced. 



There are grave difficulties as to the employment of the term instinct in scientific phraseology. It is too inexact 

 to be useful, and it is to be hoped it will soon become obsolete. 



In one sense instinct is higher than intelligence, as it acts with greater celerity and with equal certainty ; in 

 another sense it is lower, as it is a mere unreasoning prompting in a particular direction without anything to guide 

 it. It is plain that instinct cannot at one and the same time be inteUigent and unintelhgent, and this is exactly 

 what is erroneously claimed for it. It is obvious that the element of intelligence, past or present, is always present : 

 it is equally obvious that consciousness, past or present, is a factor : finally, it is mixed up with repetition or habit. 

 As generally employed, instinct represents intelUgent conscious acts repeated in the individual and in the race until 

 they become (as the result of habit) unintelligent and unconscious^that is, automatic. It really represents acts of 

 unconscious cerebration. Considered from the physiological side it involves the education and training of the nervous 

 system, especially of the brain, in the individual and in the race. Considered from the psychical side it involves 

 the employment of conscious reasoning and the arranging of means to ends, immediate or remote. InteUigence, 

 consciousness, and repetition must all be predicated in instinct, and in this extended sense it is appUoable to most 

 of the lower animals and to man. The term is, however, a faulty one, as it includes too much or too little, according 

 as the object is to exalt or depreciate the reasoning powers. In the case of the lower animals, such as the ant, the 

 bee, the spider, bird, &c., instinct figures as a power superior to reason, where means to ends are secured without 

 consciousness and thought : in the case of the highest animals, instinct has its seat originally in conscious thought, 

 reflection, and repetition. 



