152 Studies in Animal Behavior 



an instinctive activity which they have been the 

 means of setting into operation. Where an instinct 

 is very readily discharged, as in the case of the food- 

 taking instinct of a hungry animal, acts which oc- 

 casion this discharge tend to become quickly and 

 firmly associated. 



We may be justified in saying that certain instincts, 

 such as that of devouring food, have a quite gen- 

 eral tendency to reinforce acts which bring stimuli 

 that form the occasion of their discharge. On 

 the other hand, injurious stimuli may tend to in- 

 hibit quite generally other activities with which they 

 have been associated. Animals are supplied with 

 an elaborate equipment of avoiding reactions as a 

 part of their congenital make-up, and as a result 

 of the associations formed through experience they 

 come to shun the things by which these avoiding 

 reactions have been aroused. There is nothing a 

 priori improbable in the assumption that animals 

 may be congenitally endowed with connections in 

 the central nervous system which would enable them 

 to link up their various trial movements in ways 

 which, on the whole, are serviceable. That such 

 connections should exist is no more improbable than 

 the occurrence of any other form of adaptive or- 

 ganization. 



Profiting by experience in an animal of a primi- 

 tive type of intelligence we may conceive, then, to 

 take place as follows: The creature is endowed 

 with the capacity for responding to beneficial stimuli 



