Animal instinct

“ If an answer must be given to the question whether instinct or intelligence has priority in the course of the evolution of behaviour, it may be urged that, on theoretical grounds, the [174] claims of instinct are the stronger. Taking animals as we actually find them, however, they afford numberless examples of behaviour at first instinctive but subsequently modified, in greater or less degree, in accordance with the teachings of experience. Let us, first, assume that the environment is slowly changing, or has changed, in some definite manner. ”

“ It is no doubt exceedingly difficult, and perhaps impossible, to define where instinct ends, and reason begins, in animals. But that some of them are endowed with a faculty which does not come under the usual notion of instinct, by whatever other name we may choose to call it, will, I think, hardly allow of a dispute. This, as it strikes me, appears in the different degrees of intelligence which we are accustomed to recognize as elevating one species of animal above another,—as the half-reasoning elephant for instance, and the friend of man, the dog, above numberless others. ”

“ For instance, we have had many books, brochures, magazine articles, &c., devoted to the subject of "animal instinct v. reason," and I would mention such standard works as 'Animal Behaviour' and 'Habit and Instinct,' by Principal Lloyd Morgan. ”

“ Instinct is the faculty with which Nature has endowed all animals for the preservation and continuation of their own species. This is accordingly exhibited in various features, as circumstances may call forth the operation of the power; but so wonderful are the attributes of Nature that the details of her arrangements throughout the animal and insect creation give to every class an amount of sense which in many instances surmounts the narrow bounds of simple instinct.
The great characteristic of sheer instinct is its want of progression; it never increases, never improves. ”

“ To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her. [2]
Thus we may be sure that, however mysterious some animals’ instincts may appear to us, our instincts will appear no less mysterious to them. And we may conclude that, to the animal which obeys it, every impulse and every step of every instinct shines with its own sufficient light, and seems at the moment the only eternally right and proper thing to do. ”

“ So that if we distinguish between instinct as congenital and habit as acquired, we must not lose sight of the fact that there is continual interaction, in a great number of cases, between instinct and habit, and that the first performance of a deferred instinct may be carried out in close and inextricable association with the habits which, at the period of life in question, have already been acquired. Instinct supplies an outline sketch of behaviour, to which experience adds colour and shading. ”

“ It appears to me that instinct should be defined as—“the performance by an animal of complex acts, absolutely without instruction or previously-acquired knowledge.” Thus, acts are said to be performed by birds in building their nests, by bees in constructing their cells, and by many insects in providing for the future wants of themselves or their progeny, without ever having seen such acts performed by others, and without any knowledge of why they perform them themselves. ”

“ Thus we call the sentiment which leads the Birds to perform so many admirable actions, instinct. The tenderness of the mother for her young for instance—a tenderness so full of delicacy and foresight, is, we say, only the result of instinct. It is agreed, however, that this instinct singularly resembles the intelligence called reason. ”

“ It must not be supposed that, in adducing flight as an example of instinctive behaviour in birds, we are contending that it is this and nothing more throughout life. The inference to be drawn from the facts of observation is rather that instinct provides a general ground plan of behaviour which intelligent acquisition, by enforcing here and checking there, perfects and guides to finer issues. ”

“ Instinct is automatic obedience to the demands of conditions external to the nervous system. As these conditions vary with each kind of animal, so must the demands vary, and from this arises the great variety actually seen in the instincts of different animals. ”

“ Summary.—I have endeavoured briefly in this chapter to show that the mental qualities of our domestic animals vary, and that the variations are inherited. Still more briefly I have attempted to show that instincts vary slightly in a state of nature. No one will dispute that instincts are of the highest importance to each animal. Therefore I can see no difficulty, under changing conditions of life, in natural selection accumulating slight modifications of instinct to any extent, in any useful direction. In some cases habit or use and disuse have probably come into play. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we see animals acting, without the teaching of experience, in the same sort of way in which we act after that teaching of experience, we, perplexed to explain this anomaly, pronounce the action instinctive. The bee and the bird build in this inexplicable manner. Probably a more minute investigation may enable us to resolve whatever we call Instinct into some delicacy of the senses, or some rapidity of the judgment, peculiar to the animal. ”

“ Fig. 118.—Jaws of Nemichthys avocetta. Jordan and Gilbert.
Variability of Instincts.—When we study instincts of animals with care and in detail, we find that their regularity is much less than has been supposed. There is as much variation in regard to instinct among individuals as there is with regard to other characters of the species. Some power of choice is found in almost every operation of instinct. Even the most machine-like instinct shows some degree of adaptability to new conditions. On the other hand, in no animal does reason show entire freedom from automatism or reflex action. ”

“ When we meet with instances of a nature calculated to overturn this theory—such as wild animals attacking and destroying travellers, or preying upon the shepherd as he guards his flock, with others of a similar description—instead of hastily presuming upon the falsity of the above position, we should rather seek for some explanation of the reasons which in these cases checked for the time the workings of the animal’s natural instinct. ”

“ The word 'instinct' has its legitimate application in natural history, where it is used of the unconscious acts of unconscious beings. We say that birds build their nests by instinct, that fishes swim by instinct, that cats catch mice by instinct; and, though no natural philosopher has yet explained what instinct is, yet we accept the term as a conventional expression for an unknown power working in the animal world. ”

“ Each one of them then is an instinct, as instincts are commonly defined. But they contradict each other—'experience' in each particular opportunity of application usually deciding the issue. The animal that exhibits them loses the 'instinctive' demeanor and appears to lead a life of hesitation and choice, an intellectual life ”

“ Few words in our language have been subject to a greater variety of meanings than the word instinct. In popular phraseology, descended from the Middle Ages, all the mental faculties of the animal are termed instinctive, in contradistinction to those of man, which are termed rational. But unless we commit ourselves to an obvious reasoning in a circle, we must avoid assuming that all actions of animals are instinctive, and then arguing that because they are instinctive, therefore they differ from the rational actions of man. ”

“ In studying the behaviour of wild animals under natural conditions, it must always be difficult to distinguish the congenital basis from the acquired elements; for both tend to bring about a working adjustment to the conditions of life, and we can seldom have opportunities of tracing the interplay of the factors which produce the instinct-habits of adult life. [137] But under domestication we seek to bring about a new working adjustment to conditions imposed by man. The skilful trainer utilizes the natural instinctive tendencies as a basis ”

“ But, pray remember, by Instinct we do not mean the still higher something that is really rudimentary Intellect that we notice in the higher animals. We are speaking now of the unreasoning instinct observed in the lower animals, and to a certain degree in man. This Instinctive plane of mentality causes the bird to build its nest before its eggs are laid, which instructs the animal mother how to care for its young when born, and after birth; which teaches the bee to construct its cell and to store up its honey. ”

“ It matters not if the particular form assumed by play and experimentation be largely dependent on instinctive tendencies. For all the phenomena of instinct, profoundly organic as are the modes of behaviour comprised under this head, definite as are the inherited co-ordinations in the most typical examples of its occurrence, have also, except in some doubtful cases, a conscious aspect. ”

“ Such change would, of course, be relative, and might be due, either to new conditions brought to bear on the animal, or to the animal being itself brought, in the expansion of its life, within their influence. The old instinct is no longer quite adapted to the changed circumstances. ”

“ Hence, instinct in animals is an inclination which necessitates that from sensations provoked while giving rise to wants the animal is impelled to act without the participation of any thought or any act of the will. ”

“ The explanation given of the fact that the instinctive behaviour of one animal directly excites similar behaviour on the part of his fellows, consists in the assumption that among gregarious animals each of the principal instincts has a special perceptual inlet that is adapted to receive the sense-impressions made by the expressions of the same instinct in other animals of the same species: thus, for example, the fear instinct, inter alia, has a special perceptual inlet that renders it excitable by the sound of the cry of fear ”

“ So that we thus see how animal instincts may arise in either of two different ways: for, on the one hand, they may arise from the performance of actions which were originally intelligent, but which by frequent repetition have become automatic; and, on the other hand, they may arise from survival of the fittest, preserving actions which, although never intelligent, yet happen to have been of benefit to the animals which first chanced to perform them. ”

“ A very common way of talking about these admirably definite tendencies to act is by naming abstractly the purpose they subserve, such as self-preservation, or defence, or care for eggs and young—and saying the animal has an instinctive fear of death or love of life, or that she has an instinct of self-preservation, or an instinct of maternity and the like. But this represents the animal as obeying abstractions which, not once in a million cases is it possible it can have framed. The strict physiological way of interpreting the facts leads to far clearer results. ”

“ By a due attention to these circumstances many of the actions of young animals, which at first sight seemed only referable to an inexplicable instinct, will appear to have been acquired like all other animal actions, that are attended with consciousness, by the repeated efforts of our muscles under the conduct of our sensations or desires. ”

“ And that is not quite the same thing as instinct, unless one is disposed to go to the extreme of Berkeley's philosophy and make instinct a kind of spirit-personality that watches over animals all the time. Often the knowledge of healing or of primitive surgery seems to be the discovery or possession of a few rare individual animals, instead of being spread widecast among the species, as instincts are. ”

“ Without concerning ourselves with the origin of instincts, and so without reference to the theory of evolution, we have to consider the most conspicuous and distinctive features of instinct as it now exists. The most important point to observe in the first instance is that instinct involves mental operations; for this is the only point that serves to distinguish instinctive action from reflex. Reflex action, as already explained, is non-mental neuro-muscular adaptation to appropriate stimuli ”

“ Some writers regard them as "inherited habits," while others, with apparent justice, doubt if mere habits or voluntary actions repeated till they become a "second nature" ever leave a trace upon heredity. Such investigators regard instinct as the natural survival of those methods of automatic response which were most useful to the life of the animal, the individual having less effective methods of reflex action perishing, leaving no posterity. ”