810 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL XXXV. 
That instinct activities and activities implying choice should 
not be included under the same name is also evident from the 
difficulties which we experience when we attempt to show how 
the former could pass over into the latter; although the 
ingenious hypothesis of Spencer, James, Morgan, and Whit- 
man ('99, p. 333 e? seg.) may indicate where we are to seek for 
this transition, which these authors find in the progressive 
complication and mutual interference of instincts. Such con- 
ditions, it is claimed, must lead to a diminution in the automa- 
ticity of instinct and the supervention of a state of hesitancy 
and choice on the part of the organism. 
While on the one hand, as above stated, Wasmann improperly 
expands the conception of instinct by including in it also the 
simpler manifestations of intelligence, he narrows it in another 
direction when he attempts to distinguish rather too sharply 
between reflex action and instinct. His criterion that reflex 
action depends essentially on the function of subordinate 
ganglia, whereas instinct depends on the activity of a brain, 
or sensorium, can only be maintained if the conception of 
instinct is restricted to the Metazoa and understood as includ- 
ing intelligence (sensu auctorum). But with the rejection of 
this definition of instinct we must also reject such a distinc- 
tion between reflex action and instinct. 
It may be said in this connection that the attempts of others 
to distinguish between instinct and reflex action are almost 
equally unsatisfactory. This is true, e.g., of the distinction 
emphasized by Romanes, when he says (95, p. 12) : “ I endeavor 
to draw as sharply as possible the line which zz theory should 
be taken to separate instinctive from reflex action; and this 
line, as I have already said, is constituted by the boundary of 
non-mental or unconscious adjustment, with adjustment 1n 
which there is concerned consciousness or mind." It is well 
that Romanes has stamped his distinction as a theoretical one, 
for its application in comparative psychology is obviously 
impracticable, since it must fluctuate with our opinions COD 
cerning the presence or absence of consciousness in different 
animals. It is not at all certain that consciousness is present 
in the cases of pure instinct; or, if present, it may exist as à 
