INSTINCT, REASON, ETC. 71 



To make these various definitions of Romanes' clear as 

 we go along, I will just notice familiar examples. 



A man who has sustained an injury to the upper portions 

 of the spinal cord will often perform acts with his lower limbs 

 that seem like conscious movements, so will a man in his 

 sleep. Tickle his feet and he will withdraw them, though 

 his brain takes no cognisance either of the stimulus or its 

 re-action. Cut off a pike's head, and put a hot iron to the 

 severed end of the spinal cord at the neck, and he will flap 

 his tail. Remove a frog's cerebrum, and then put him on 

 a slate or board, gradually tilted towards the perpendicular, 

 and he will crawl up, and right over the edge, to sustain his 

 balance, so showing his power of muscular adjustment ; but 

 remove his cerebellum, and his power ceases; and yet if a 

 drop of nitric acid be put on his back, he will try and stroke 

 it off with his feet, because the spinal cord which supplies the 

 limbs with powers of motion and sensation is still capable of 

 re-action and stimuli. 



The act is, however, unconscious, and only automic and 

 reflex re-action to stimuli. The lower creatures, e.g., a sea 

 anemone, or a snail, are limited to this class of actions, for the 

 nerve centres are of a very rudimentary description ; and, 

 I doubt much, if a worm, no matter how he may wriggle, 

 is conscious of pain when he is pulled over the hook of 

 the angler. We see here function and structure in equal 

 degrees very simple, and limited in scope. 



Returning to our definitions, Professor Romanes says : 

 " Instinct is reflex action, into which is imported the element 

 of consciousness. The term is therefore a generic one, com- 

 prising all those faculties of mind which are concerned in 

 conscious and adaptive action, antecedent to individual ex- 

 perience without necessary knowledge of the relation between 

 means employed and ends attained, but similarly performed 

 under similar and frequently recurring circumstances by all 

 the individuals for the same species." 



We must all be able at once to think of hundreds of 

 familiar examples of this. I will mention one or two that 

 occur to my mind. The storing up by certain species of 

 hymenopterous insects in the cell wherein they have depo- 

 sited an egg, food for the future grub : and further stinging it 

 in such a spot as to paralyse it without killing it, if it be 

 a living creature that is desired as food, so as to prevent 

 the evil consequences of putrefaction if it should die. The 

 gathering of chicks under a hen's wings when in presence of 

 a threatened danger, or the suckling of the newly-born infant. 



