really tolerably plain.Man has a far greater variety of impulses than any lower animal; and any one of these impulses, taken in itself, is as 'blind' as the lowest instinct can be; but, owing to man's memory, power of reflection, and power of inference, they come each one to be felt by him, after he has once yielded to them and experienced their results, in connection with a foresight of those results.In this condition an impulse acted out may be said to be acted out, in pert at least, for the sake of its results.It is obvious that every instinctive act, in an animal with memory, must cease to be 'blind' after being once repeated , and must be accompanied with foresight of its 'end' just so far as that end may have fallen under the animal's cognizance.An insect that lays her eggs in a place where she never sees them hatched must always do so 'blindly;' but a hen who has already hatched a brood can hardly be assumed to sit with perfect 'blindness' on her second nest.Some expectation of consequences must in every case like this be aroused; and this expectation, according as it is that of something desired or of something disliked, must necessarily either reinforce or inhibit the mere impulse.The hen's idea of the chickens would probably encourage her to sit; a rat's memory, on, the other hand, of a former escape from a trap would neutralize his impulse to take bait from anything that reminded him of that trap.If a boy sees a fat hopping-toad, he probably has incontinently an impulse (especially if with other boys) to smash the creature with a stone, which impulse we may suppose him blindly to obey.But something in the expression of the dying toad's clasped hands suggests the meanness of the act, or reminds him of sayings he has heard about the sufferings of animals being like his own; so that, when next he is tempted by a toad, an idea arises which, far from spurring him again to the torment, prompts kindly actions, and may even make him the toad's champion against less reflecting boys.
It is plain, then, that, no matter how well endowed an animal may originally be in the way of instincts, his resultant actions will be much modified if the instincts combine with experience, if in addition to impulses he have memories, associations, inferences, and expectations, on any considerable scale.An object O, on which he has an instinctive impulse to react in the manner A, would directly provoke him to that reaction.
But O has meantime become for him a sign of the nearness of P, on which he has an equally strong impulse to react in the manner B, quite unlike A.So that when he meets O the immediate impulse A and the remote impulse B struggle in his breast for the mastery.The fatality and uniformity said to be characteristic of instinctive actions will be so little manifest that one might be tempted to deny to him altogether the possession of any instinct about the object O.Yet how false this judgment would be! The instinct about O is there; only by the complication of the associative machinery it has come into conflict with another instinct about P.
Here we immediately reap the good fruits of our simple physiological conception of what an instinct is.If it be a mere excite-motor impulse, due to the pre-existence of a certain 'reflex arc' in the nerve-centres of the creature, of course it must follow the law of all such reflex area.
One liability of such area is to have their activity 'inhibited,' by other processes going on at the same time.It makes no difference whether the are be organized at birth, or ripen spontaneously later, or be due to acquired habit, it must take its chances with all the other area, and sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail, in drafting off the currents through itself.
The mystical view of an instinct would make it invariable.The physiological view would require it to show occasional irregularities in any animal in whom the number of separate instincts, and the possible entrance of the same stimulus into several of them, were great.And such irregularities are what every superior animal's instincts do show in abundance."
Wherever the mind is elevated enough to discriminate; wherever several distinct sensory elements must combine to discharge the reflex-arc; wherever, instead of plumping into action instantly at the first rough intimation of what sort of a thing is there, the agent waits to see which one of its kind it is and what the circumstances are of its appearance;
wherever different individuals and different circumstances can impel him in different ways; wherever these are the conditions -- we have a masking of the elementary constitution of the instinctive life.The whole story of our dealings with the lower wild animals is the history of our taking advantage of the way in which they judge of everything by its mere label, as it were, so as to ensnare or kill them.Nature, in them, has left matters in this rough way, and made them act always in the manner which would be oftenest right.There are more worms unattached to hooks than impaled upon them; therefore, on the whole, says Nature to her fishy children, bite at every worm and take your chances.But as her children get higher, and their lives more precious, she reduces the risks.Since what seems to be the same object may be now a genuine food and now a bait;
since in gregarious species each individual may prove to be either the friend or the rival, according to the circumstances, of another; since any entirely unknown object may be fraught with weal or woe, Nature implants contrary impulses to act on many classes of things , and leaves it to slight alterations in the conditions of the individual case to decide which impulse shall carry the day.Thus, greediness and suspicion, curiosity and timidity, coyness and desire, bashfulness and vanity, sociability and pugnacity, seem to shoot over into each other as quickly, and to remain in as unstable equilibrium, in the higher birds and mammals as in man.
