Picture - Cosmic Polymath

INSTINCT 243
advance in plants and animals, and the cosmic changes which accompany them, are not the outcome of accident, but
of pre-arrangement and design. This ensures uniformity and prevents confusion. While there is a well-marked
tendency to advance, progress is at times interrupted. In such cases not only is there no advance but there is
deterioration, followed, in not a few instances, by extinction. Here we have the rule and the exception. Plants
and animals, permanent to an extraordinary degree, even in their details, at times reach high-water mark, after which
they retrogress and partly or wholly disappear. This should not happen according to the doctrine of evolution and
" natural selection," where the fittest survive in an unbroken, continuous hue ; all plants and animals being derived
from a primordial cell and its representatives. There should, according to natural selection and evolution, be no
gaps in the flora and fauna, geologically or otherwise. The missing links should be found somewhere. If plants
and animals are originally derived from one stem, failure in one line should be made good by another line : the trail
should never be lost. The subject of " natural selection " is fully discussed further on.
§ 48. Instinct.
This term has been variously defined.
According to Webster it is a natural inward impulse ; an unconscious, involuntary, or unreasoning prompting
to any mode of action, whether bodily or mental, without a distinct appreciation of the end or object to be accom-
plished : a natural unreasoning impulse by which an animal is guided to the performance of any action, without
thought of improvement in the method.
According to Paley it is a propensity prior to experience, and independent of instruction.
According to Whately it is a bUnd tendency to some mode of action, independent of any consideration, on the
part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads.
According to Sir W^ilham Hamilton it is an agent which performs blindly and ignorantly a work of inteUigence
and knowledge.
There is perhaps no word in the English language which has been more vaguely employed and interpreted, and
which has introduced more confusion in physiological and psychological problems. Nor is this to be wondered at
considering the nature of the definitions given of it. These, for the most part, involve a contradiction in terms.
They speak of what are virtually intelligent acts performed blindly, unconsciously, unintentionally, and without
previous knowledge, training, and experience. With such a medley of meaning, misapprehension and confusion
are inevitable.
It is quite evident that intelligence and consciousness in one form or other, and at one period or other, must be
predicated of every instinctive act. Either the animal or its ancestors must be regarded as conscious and intelligent
when they arrange and devise means to ends, or the Creator must act directly through them. The so-called
instinctive acts are born of intelligence and consciousness, and the instinctive habit is produced by repetition in the
individual. In all instinctive acts there is the element of design, but design implies a conscious, intelUgent Designer,
either within or without the animal which acquires and avails itself of the instinctive habit. There is direct proof
in the higher animals that the so-called instinctive acts in the lower animals are produced originally by intellectual
conscious efforts frequently repeated. The instinctive or automatic acts in man are so produced.
There are grave difficulties as to the employment of the term instinct in scientific phraseology. It is too inexact
to be useful, and it is to be hoped it will soon become obsolete.
In one sense instinct is higher than intelligence, as it acts with greater celerity and with equal certainty ; in
another sense it is lower, as it is a mere unreasoning prompting in a particular direction without anything to guide
it. It is plain that instinct cannot at one and the same time be inteUigent and unintelhgent, and this is exactly
what is erroneously claimed for it. It is obvious that the element of intelligence, past or present, is always present
it is equally obvious that consciousness, past or present, is a factor : finally, it is mixed up with repetition or habit.
As generally employed, instinct represents intelUgent conscious acts repeated in the individual and in the race until
they become (as the result of habit) unintelligent and unconscious^that is, automatic. It really represents acts of
unconscious cerebration. Considered from the physiological side it involves the education and training of the nervous
system, especially of the brain, in the individual and in the race. Considered from the psychical side it involves
the employment of conscious reasoning and the arranging of means to ends, immediate or remote. InteUigence,
consciousness, and repetition must all be predicated in instinct, and in this extended sense it is appUoable to most
of the lower animals and to man. The term is, however, a faulty one, as it includes too much or too little, according
as the object is to exalt or depreciate the reasoning powers. In the case of the lower animals, such as the ant, the
bee, the spider, bird, &c., instinct figures as a power superior to reason, where means to ends are secured without
consciousness and thought : in the case of the highest animals, instinct has its seat originally in conscious thought,
reflection, and repetition.