Behavior (biology)

“ To illustrate the truth of this statement let us cite a few typical examples of animal behavior, that are sometimes regarded as manifestations of intelligent or rational consciousness on the part of the brute. ”

“ The second of the four great historical explanations appeals to a change not immediately connected with the outer world, but to one within the organism itself.
Practice makes perfect is a familiar adage. Not only in human affairs do we find that a part through use becomes a better tool for performing its task, and through disuse degenerates; but in the field of animal behavior we find that many of the most essential types of behavior have been learned through repeated associations formed by contact with the outside. ”

“ The Capacity for Alternative Action in High Animals Renders Possible More Than One Form of Behavior.—With this modification of instinct by experience made possible, there comes at the same time, of course, the capacity for a rational instead of a purely instinctive behavior. This very capacity for alternative action opens up many new possibilities of behavior and together with the well-known fixative effects of habit, also the opportunity of permanently establishing certain ones. ”

“ Sufficient has now been said to illustrate some of the ways in which instinct and intelligence interact in the evolution of behaviour. Such interaction is further exemplified in the social life of animals, which will be dealt with in the next chapter. ”

“ After the usefulness of an animal in behavioristic or genetic inquiries had been exhausted, it might be made to render still further service to science in various experimental physiological, or medical inquiries. ”

“ Under the head of organic behaviour, in the widest acceptation of the term, fall the whole of physiology, the whole of embryological development, nay, more, the whole of organic evolution; while mental evolution, in all its stages, may be regarded as the psychological aspect of that which, from the physiological aspect, is the evolution of nervous systems. Life itself is the behaviour of a particular kind of substance which is found more or less abundantly under natural conditions. ”

“ The changes in behavior during the life of the animal or the development of its behavior give one of the main clues to the physiological conditions which determine some of the most characteristic forms of responses, and finally as a result of all these activities and processes of adjustment to the conditions of life, a relatively mature and adjusted condition of the struggle for existence in animals and associations may be reached, the culmination of animal harmonies. ”

“ One of the first lessons which the study of animal behaviour, in its organic aspect, should impress upon our minds is, that living cells may react to stimuli in a manner which we perceive to be subservient to a biological end, and yet react without conscious purpose—that is to say, automatically. ”

“ At each stage of life there is the closest relation between structure and behaviour, and each is equally adapted to a biological end of which the creature has never had an opportunity of gaining any experience. ”

“ We shall have to consider, not only the kind of animal behaviour which implies intelligence, sometimes of a high order; not only such behaviour as animal play and courtship, which suggests emotional attributes; but also forms of behaviour which, if not unconscious, seem to lack conscious guidance and control. We shall deal mainly with the behaviour of the animal as a whole, but also incidentally with that of its constituent particles, or cells ”

“ 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. ”

“ For it is probable that all the situations with which pleasure and satisfaction are in high degree associated are, in primary origin, closely connected with behaviour directed, through natural or sexual selection, to some definite biological end, or, in brief, with behaviour of biological value. And it is, perhaps, not improbable that the states of consciousness most highly toned with strong emotion have their origin in those situations which arise amid the pairing, parental, and companiable relations of animal life. ”

“ All we can say is, that it is possible to trace in animal behaviour some of the instinctive tendencies and intelligent modes of accommodation to social circumstances, together with the germs of imitation, intercommunication, and tradition, and the establishment of bonds of sympathy, without which the subsequent stages of evolution would be inconceivable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Under the first will fall those relatively definite modes of behaviour which fit the animal to deal at once, on their first occurrence, with certain essential or frequently recurring conditions of the environment. Under the second head will fall the power of dealing with special circumstances as they arise in the course of a varied life. ”

“ But where organic response falls under our observation, no matter how simple and direct that response may be, there is a natural tendency to suppose that the behaviour is conscious; and where the response is less simple and more indirect, this tendency is so strengthened as to give rise to a state of mind bordering on, or actually reaching, conviction. ”

“ Be this as it may, it is only through the action of environment on the organism, and the reaction of the organism on the environment in behaviour, that experience becomes polarized into subject and object. Let it be clearly understood that for the animal, in all probability, subject and object are not clearly distinguished, and set over against each other in the antithesis of thought. Only late in mental development are the self and the world distinguished in subtle analysis as different aspects of the common experience in which both have their inseparable being. ”

“ But all those actions of men or animals, that are attended with consciousness, and seem neither to have been directed by their appetites, taught by their experience, nor deduced from observation or tradition, have been referred to the power of instinct. ”

“ There is no doubt as to the big fact that in the course of evolution animals have shown an increasing complexity and masterfulness of behaviour, that they have become at once more controlled and more definitely free agents, and that the inner aspect of the behaviour—experimenting, learning, thinking, feeling, and willing—has come to count for more and more. ”

“ It is, however, becoming more and more clearly evident that the discussion of the relation of the animal to the human mind, if it is to be made a subject of scientific inquiry, must be conducted on psychological lines by those who have devoted years of study to the subject. In this work such a discussion will be attempted, and animal behaviour will be treated as the precursor of human conduct, and as affording evidence of the germs from which the distinctively human mental attributes may have been evolved. ”

“ The behaviour of living cells is dependent on changes in their environment; that of deciduous trees, as they put forth their leaves in the spring or shed them in the autumn, is related to the change of the season; instinctive, intelligent, and emotional behaviour are called forth in response to those circumstances which exercise a constraining influence at the moment of action. Used in this comprehensive sense, the term “behaviour” neither implies nor excludes the presence of consciousness. ”

“ To reinforce, from a somewhat different point of view, that which has again and again been urged in the preceding sections of this inquiry, that much of animal behaviour is an organic legacy. A going mechanism of great delicacy, with ready-made co-ordinations, the products of biological evolution, affords to consciousness a vast body of its primary data. ”

“ In conclusion, then, we may say that the primary purpose of the evolution of feeling and emotion is to promote beneficial behaviour, and that the observed consonance of the psychological end of attaining satisfaction, and the biological end of securing survival, seems to be due to natural selection—is, indeed, scarcely explicable on any other naturalistic hypothesis. ”

“ Who can believe, for example, that a new-born baby is aware of the necessity of food for preserving life? Or that insects, in laying eggs, are concerned for the preservation of their species? The essence of instinct, one might say, is that it provides a mechanism for acting without foresight in a manner which is usually advantageous biologically. ”

“ Human conduct, taken as the reaction of such an organism under stimulus, may be stated in terms of tropism, involving, of course, a very close-knit causal sequence between the impact and the response, but at the same time imputing to the organism a habit of life and a self-directing and selective attention in meeting the complex of forces that make up its environment. ”

“ The visual stimulus at first fell upon the eye of a wholly inexperienced bird; now it falls upon the eye of one that has gained experience of pecking and tasting. What we may call the conscious situation has completely changed, at all events if we assume that the items of consciousness, including as essential the consciousness of behaviour, do not remain separate and isolated, but have coalesced into a group through association. And in this group the consciousness of behaving is perhaps the most important element in the situation, making it of practical value. ”

“ In every normal human child the passage does actually take place, though, no doubt, in a condensed and abbreviated form as an epitomized recapitulation in individual development, of the steps of evolutional progress. Thus we may obtain a key to the solution of one of the most difficult problems in evolution by continuous process—that of the transition from animal behaviour to human conduct. ”

“ How far this influence extends in animal communities—how far it is either a necessary or even an important contributory factor in the development of certain modes of behaviour—is at present in large degree a matter of speculation. And the only justification for speculation in science is that it may open our eyes to modes of influence the range and limits of whose effects may be submitted to the touchstone of careful observation, and, if possible, experiment. ”

“ But though we cannot accept the view that habit is the mother of instinct, we regard it as not improbable that habit may be the nurse of congenital propensities. Remembering that similar habits are acquired by animals of the same species throughout a series of succeeding generations, and assuming that congenital variations are constantly occurring in many directions, it seems probable that some of these variations will be coincident in direction with the acquired habits. ”

“ The instruction I drew from these occurrences was that, without knowledge of the structure and functions of a living organism, and its relations to the natural objects to which it is adapted and which influence its conditions, the best intentions may inflict only suffering when pleasure is meant to be given; and that this holds as true in the case of human beings as in that of rabbits. ”

“ If it be true that, in many of the lower forms of life, consciousness or sentience, though presumably present in some dim form, is merely an accompaniment of organic behaviour without reaching the level of recognizable effectiveness; and if, during the development of one of the higher animals from the fertilized ovum, the early stages of organic behaviour are in like manner merely sentient; it follows that, when effective consciousness enters upon the scene (who can say at what exact stage of evolution?) , it finds itself a partner in a going concern. ”

“ But the essential condition of the successful working of such a system is constancy in the environment to which the instinctive behaviour is adapted. Completely stereotyped behaviour, in its theoretical perfection, is in exact adaptation to the circumstances. Where instincts are only relatively perfect, further adaptation is secured through congenital variation and the survival of the individuals in which the behaviour is better adapted to the comparatively invariable circumstances. This is one line of evolution. ”

“ If we are to consider the conscious aspect at all, we must try and grasp the situation as a whole. And on these grounds we may yet further broaden our conception so as to include, from the psychological point of view, not only the behaviour itself, and its effects in consciousness, but also the stimulating conditions under which it is called into play. ”

“ And as with memory, so with other of our mental powers, we may, I think, distinguish between a higher and a lower faculty of each; between our higher, self-conscious, reflective mental acts—the acts of our intellectual faculty—and those of our merely sensitive power. This distinction I believe to be one of the most fundamental of all the distinctions of biology, and to be one the apprehension of which is a necessary preliminary to a successful investigation of animal psychology. ”