INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE 245 



customary to regard all the nerve manifestations of the lower and lowest animals as reflex, mechanical, and involun- 

 tary, the power of voluntary movement being reserved for the highest animals and man. The effect of this 

 sweeping conclusion in favour of reflex acts is to deprive the lower and lowest animals, wholly or in part, of con- 

 sciousness, intelligence, and the power of voluntary movement — a state of matters which not only places the lower 

 animals on a very much lower level, but which confines the power of volition and of reasoning to man, the monkeys, 

 and a few of the higher animals. For this there is no warrant. That the majority of the lowest animals move volun- 

 tarily and quite apart from reflex action will be readily admitted by all who have made this subject a special study. 



INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE 



As already stated, intelhgence precedes instinct. We have proof of this in our own experience. If voluntary actions 

 are repeated at intervals and frequently, they become instinctive and automatic — that is, they are performed without 

 thought. To learn to walk requires much conscious effort on the part of the child. When the art of walking is 

 acquired it is performed in the absence of all thought and effort. What is true of child movement is true of animal 

 movement as a whole. I shall probably be here told that the lower animal forms have no minds, no reasoning powers. 

 My reply is that they are capable of what are practically voluntary designed movements, and by that I mean move- 

 ments to given ends. I further reply that the controlled movements witnessed in the lower animals are the outcome 

 of mind, or its equivalent, either in the living thing itself or in the Creator Who made it, and Who regulates and 

 adapts all its movements, be they small or great, simple or complex. It is not conceivable that the innumerable 

 multitudes of living things could exist if they were deprived of volition, or its equivalent, and if they were not 

 cared for. In the great scheme of creation everything is arranged, and contingencies of every possible kind antici- 

 pated. To the simplest and most complex plants and animals separate roles are assigned, and these roles are per- 

 formed, in a sense, intelUgently. This intelligence in the thing created, or the Creator Who formed and works in it, 

 accounts for the habits and adaptability of plants and animals. It assigns them their place in nature. It explains 

 how plants grow in certain directions, assume given shapes, and produce seed, &c. ; how animals move to and fro 

 in certain well-defined grooves ; how they sleep and wake, hibernate, migrate, build nests, store up food, procreate, &c. 

 If the actions of the lower animals pre-suppose experience and reasoning powers which cannot be conceded to them, 

 then we are forced to fall back upon the inscrutable powers of the Creator. It is beside the question to say the 

 spider spins its web, the bee constructs its comb, the ant its complex dwelhng, and the bird its beautiful nest, by 

 instinct ; still less can it be said that the bee stores its honey and the ant its food by instinct. These are rational 

 and far-reaching actions. They can only be explained in one of two ways. They are either the result of experi- 

 ence and reason (or its equivalent) in the present race or the ancestors of the spiders, bees, ants, and birds ; or they 

 are due to an intelUgent First Cause Who guided the ancestors, and continues to guide the offspring— the descendants 

 of the said spiders, bees, ants, and birds. Instinct in its modern acceptation represents a bUnd or unpremeditated 

 act, but the spiders' web, the honey-comb, and the ants' and birds' nests are miracles of design and intelhgent 

 architecture. No amount of experience in the lower forms of life could, apart from intelhgence of some kind, 

 culminate in such marvellous works of art. It has been thought that the accumulation of acquired characters 

 through untold ages, natural selection, and hereditary transmission largely account for the existing state of things, 

 but I would point out that to acquire, select, and transmit characters implies intelhgence— intelligence of a high 

 order, and intelligence incessantly at work from the dawn of creation. Moreover, no number of acquired characters, 

 if accidental, would ever produce a progressively improved plant or animal. The acquired characters, to be useful, 

 must be employed according to a given plan by a voluntary intelligent agent. Accidental chance characters can 

 achieve nothing. Progress and improvement imply intellect, and whenever and wherever they occur intellect 

 must be predicated. 



It is a mere trifling with language and with facts to talk of instinct as a blind impulse, but one which, neverthe- 

 less, attains given ends with the certainty and precision of an unerring, intelligent agent. A thing cannot at one 

 and the same time act bUndly and intelhgently. The so-called instinctive acts, in every instance, involve intelh- 

 gence either in the creature or the Creator. The definitions given of instinct necessitate, as I have already shown, 

 a contradiction in terms. 



The rule would seem to be, that intelligence is vouchsafed to the animal according as its structure becomes 

 complex, and its powers of independent action are multiplied. The Creator guides and takes care of creatures 

 which cannot take care of themselves. 



It is impossible to disassociate instinct from intelhgence and knowledge, and wherever we have clear adapta- 

 tions of means to ends we are dealing with a planned whole and design as contra -distinguished from chaos and 

 chance. 



