Charles Abram Ellwood

“ The concept of instinct, therefore, leaves as large a place as any sociologist could desire for the influence of selection, of race, of sex and of inborn individual differences in the social life.
While there can be no question but that instinctive reactions, from the psychological point of view, are the basis of the relationships of individuals in society, nevertheless, it is very difficult to say just what proportion of human activities may be regarded as primarily instinctive. ”

“ Those persons who, like Fourier, claim that the instincts and the correlated emotions should be the supreme guide in social life would plunge society again into barbarism. Our instincts, as Professor Thorndike remarks, would be a much better guide if we were still living a wild life in the woods than they are in our complex civilized society. ”

“ It is especially difficult to trace the instinctive element in human institutions as they exist in modern civilized society. It is certainly incorrect to explain anything important in the social life of civilized peoples simply through instinct, on account of the fact that instinctive reactions under such conditions are overlaid with a mass of habits which we term custom and tradition, and are constantly modified or inhibited by many other social factors. ”

“ Again, the influence of objective conditions is, of course, to be taken for granted in considering human society from the standpoint of instinct, since no instinctive reaction can develop unless the objective environment furnishes the appropriate stimulus. It is a mistake, however, to consider that such stimuli in the objective environment of themselves give rise to the activity; for nothing is more clearly demonstrated in the psychology of the present than that the organism frequently, indeed usually, seeks the stimulus. ”

“ It is now over twenty years since Professor James upset the older view of human nature by saying that man had more instincts than any other animal. This view, after years of controversy, has finally won out in psychology and is now not seriously disputed by any one who understands what the psychologist means by instinct. Thorndike states that the list of human instincts is ever increasing because many actions which have commonly been credited to the acquisition of individual experience are coming now to be known as really the gifts of nature. ”

“ The third objection which some make to the use of the concept of instinct in sociology is that instinct is but a term, a concept, and that it stands for no real phenomena; in short, that "instinct" is merely a metaphysical concept, not a reality. ”

“ Even Aristotle's instinctive theory of society, as developed, at least, by some of his followers, is open to severe criticism because, as we shall show, man enters into social relations, not through any one or even a few, but through practically all of his instincts.
Crude recognition of the instinctive element by recent thinkers along social lines has not helped matters. The "properties of human nature," such as the aversion to labor, the love of gain and the like, which the earlier and some of the later economists have made use of, are undoubtedly very far from scientific conceptions. ”

“ Sociology, indeed, as an intermediate science between the special social sciences and the natural sciences, can not be anything more than a study of the biological and psychological factors in human social life, with reference to certain problems, such as the problems of social organization and social evolution. It is difficult to see what place the sociologist has among the laborers in positive science, unless it is a part of his business at least to formulate the results of biology and psychology so as to throw light upon problems of social organization and social evolution. ”

“ Very often the biology and psychology which they use is comparatively crude, and from ten to twenty-five years behind the times. It is, of course, entirely commendable on the part of the workers in the social sciences that they should not be over hasty in accepting any theory in biology and psychology. But when these theories have been tested and generally accepted, then the burden of giving adequate reasons must rest upon the sociologist who rejects such theories. Such is the case with the theory of instinct in psychology. ”

“ Sex attraction has always been recognized as the basis of human family life, and as one of the great primary forces in human society, but the influence of the parental instinct has not been so generally recognized. Careful study of human society shows, however, that it is the parental instinct which gives stability to the family, and so is the real foundation of that institution, as we understand it, in all ages and among all peoples. ”

“ On the other hand, human instincts are indefinitely modifiable, through selection in the race and through education in the individual. There is nothing in them, therefore, which can put any permanent obstacle in the way of carrying out any rational measure of social reform, although the recognition of instinct as at the basis of human social life, points to the conclusion that the only sure and probably the only safe method of social reconstruction is through education. ”

“ But practically all psychologists are now united in repudiating such a conception of instinct. The instincts of all the higher animals, man included, are not of this hard and fast and definite type, but are modifiable through training and experience in many ways, even though they are influential in determining animal behavior. Let us see then what conception of instinct modern psychology has worked out. In man, as in all the higher animals, there is a highly developed nervous system, with multitudes of connections between its elements. ”

“ It is evident that the modern psychological concept of instinct, so far from being metaphysical, is wholly biological. The concept of instinct as inborn pathways of nervous currents is the necessary correlate of the biological doctrines of selection and heredity. While the nervous system is more largely modifiable by use than any other part of man's organism, yet its essential structure is inherited and belongs to the stock or the phylum rather than to the individual. ”

“ Rather human instincts, corresponding to the conception of them just given as inborn pathways in the nervous system, continually run into each other and reenforce each other like a network of streams or electric currents. ”

“ While there is no single "social instinct" which can be invoked to explain the forms of man's social life, there is a whole series of reactions connected with instinctive forms of sociability, beginning with the parental instinct. That sociability is itself an instinctive, not an acquired, trait has been amply demonstrated by the researches of practically all modern sociologists. ”

“ It is idle to think that it is practical to secure such adjustment through the elimination of socially undesirable natural tendencies by any means of artificial selection. That is too far in the future to be worthy of serious discussion. The only means which remains, therefore, of adjusting man to the requirements of a complex social life is to modify and control instinctive activities by a system of scientific education of the young, that is, by a system of social character building. ”

“ The stimulus is not that which causes action, but is rather the opportunity for action, the organism being self-active; hence the error of those who would interpret social life and movements entirely in terms of objective conditions. ”

“ The instinctive reactions of the sexes and of parents and children, then, give rise to a whole series of social coordinations which express themselves variously in the institution of the family; but this is not denying, of course, that the institution of the family, as we know it, is largely also a product of custom and tradition. To see the simple instinctive form of the family we must turn to such peoples as the Andaman Islanders, the Bushmen, the Fuegians and other primitive peoples who live a purely animal existence. ”

“ While the sociologist is not yet ready to trace in any final way the workings of various instinctive reactions in human society, there can be no doubt that such a task is scientifically feasible, and will doubtless be accomplished in the near future. ”

“ The native reactions which are inherited in the hereditary structure of the nervous system are the necessary original equipment with which the individual starts his struggle for existence. Some of these reactions are so simple in organization that they do not enter to any extent into consciousness, and these are known as reflexes. These need not concern us, since they enter directly only into the physical life of the individual organism. ”

“ Many of these connections are inborn and seem to be as much a part of the heredity of the individual and the race as stature, the color of eyes and hair, or any other physical characteristic. Hence the nervous system is characterized by a multitude of more or less perfectly developed preorganized reactions which are a part of the individual's heredity. These preorganized reactions have been established through the operation of selection, biologists tell us, upon variations in the hereditary elements, in the same way in which the bodily characteristics of the species have been established. ”

“ They are evidently the psychological aspect of racial heredity, and it is as inconceivable that the organic individual should exist without them as without the equipment or general bodily structure itself. As instincts are not acquired by the individual, but are given in the germ, they are transmitted from generation to generation, varying only as other biological characteristics of the stock also vary. Inasmuch as they are characteristics of the highest and most unstable portion of the organism, the nervous system, they probably vary more widely than the grosser physical traits. ”

“ The state has been explained through a specific political instinct in man; religion has been explained through a religious instinct in man; economic phenomena have been traced to the workings of a specific economic instinct, and so on. ”

“ Moreover, the acquired habits of the individual, psychologists tell us, are wholly built up through modification of these native reactions. When the instinctive reaction fails to function properly consciousness comes in to adapt the organism to the new situation, the adaptation being made chiefly through the selection from the varied native impulses. All of the habits of the individual therefore rest in the last analysis upon the native impulses. Now, the thesis of this paper is that if instincts are the starting point for man's mental life, they must be for his social life also ”

“ In such peoples we find the simple, pairing, monogamous family group of a more or less unstable character which is practically the same as the family group which we find among the higher apes and many other animals. We are warranted, therefore, in concluding that such a form of association is not only unreflective, but also almost entirely a product of instinctive reactions. ”

“ In all the higher animals, and especially in man, on account of the complexity of his nervous system, these native reactions are not fixed and unalterable, but are subject in a large degree to modification or elimination according to changes in the environment. ”

“ The consequence is that human institutions are generally expressions of a number of instincts combined in various ways, besides being, of course, often built up largely on the basis of acquired traits. ”