440 
objections rest, I will briefly summarize my former conclusions 
as to the nature of instinct ; which principle I held to be the 
sole source of the actions of the brute, and the partial source 
of the actions of man. It will be necessary to revert to three 
points on which I insisted with regard to instinct. 
2. The first point respected the definition. The commonly 
accepted definition of instinct is, that it is a power which pro- 
duces actions “prior to experience”;* and this definition 
would be unexceptionable, were it not that it tends to beget le 
idea that all actions which are performed subsequently to ex- 
perience are not instinctive actions, an idea which radically 
vitiates our conception of the true nature of instinct. How- 
ever various may be the manifestations of instinct, they never- 
theless possess certain common characteristics, which furnish a 
sufficient basis of generalization. The general characteristic of 
instinct is a desire resulting in, or tending to result in, an 
action ; the general characteristic of such actions is that the)' 
are beneficial to the agent ; while the general characteristic of 
the desire is that it is excited to an action independently of any 
knowledge on the part of the agent as to whether the action is 
likely to be beneficial to him or not. The psychological pro- 
cess which produces the action is therefore clearly automatic ; 
for, as the desire does not result from the knowledge of the 
a«-ent, we can only explain it on the assumption that the 
agent is a machine possessing an inherent liability to be moved 
to action bv the presentation to his consciousness of paiticulai 
phenomena; and we can only explain the action on the assump- 
tion that it is the natural outcome of the desire. 1 he exist- 
ence, and to a great extent the nature, of the automatic process 
which intervenes between the sensual impression of the exciting 
cause and the action which results therefrom may be readily 
ascertained by an examination of our ow n mental states when 
we are under the influence of any of the more clearly-maiked 
forms of the instinct, such as rage, fear, &c. : t anc ^ we cau 
transfer the result of this self-examination by an almost certain 
analogy to the instincts of brutes, so far as regards those 
instincts which the brute possesses in common with ourselves. 
And although we lose the benefit of this analogy in regard to 
the instincts which are peculiar to the brute, yet we perceive in 
these latter instincts such a strong resemblance in the mode of 
their manifestation to those instincts which are common to man, 
and the nature of which we can ascertain by self-examination, 
* Palev. 
t It is unimportant whether we consider the instinct ns exhibiting tselt 
in different forms, or whether wc speak of separate instincts. 
