Innate ability

“ Instead of abandoning ourselves to similar suppositions, it would seem that we ought to recognize in the mind an innate activity, subject to the laws imposed upon it by its Creator, the infinite intelligence. ”

“ I am not a profound believer in innate ideas, if they are such ridiculous ones as metaphysicians talk of—namely, that two and two make four, and such sort of nonsense—but I do believe in certain innate principles and feelings, that govern our thoughts and actions as powerfully and irresistibly as instinct impels the brute creation ”

“ If the innate ideas be represented as mere elements of cognition, a perfectly correct and intelligible and impregnable psychology of innate ideas may, I conceive, be set on foot. But if the innate ideas be regarded as cognition, that is, as completed cognitions, nothing but an untrue doctrine, a doctrine of the most unintelligible and most bewildering character, can emerge. ”

“ Whilst, however, an innate instinct seems to prompt him to supplement his helplessness by such means, mechanical science, the industrial and the fine arts, are all progressive developments which his intellect superinduces on that tool-using instinct. ”

“ The former would embrace inherited, innate psychophysiological mechanisms or arrangements, such as those of the emotions, feelings, appetites and other tendencies manifested in instinctive reactions to the environment; the latter the memories, ideas, sentiments and other intellectual dispositions acquired and organized within the personality by the experiences of life.
The integration into one functioning organism, or whole, of all these innate and acquired dispositions with their mechanisms and inherent forces by which they come into play is personality. ”

“ Definition.—I understand, by instinct, a law of action, governing and directing the movement of sentient beings—distinct, on the one hand, from the mere blind forces of matter, as attraction, etc., and from reason on the other; a law working to a given end by impulse, yet blindly—the subject not knowing why he thus works; a law innate, inherent in the constitution of the animal, not acquired but transmitted, the origin of which is to be found in the intelligent author of the universe. These I take to be the principal characteristics of that which we term instinct. ”

“ If this view, which seems to me to account for all the peculiarities of instinctive action, is correct, instinct is not a distinct faculty, capacity, property, or quality, of being, which may be compared with or substituted for reason, but has relation only to the mode in which the knowledge by which we determine some of our actions was originally obtained. Whether the innate knowledge of modes and plans is by transmission, or otherwise, does not affect the theory. It is sufficient that they are thus ready formed in the being without effort of its own. ”

“ Whatever the equipment at birth, the innate dispositions are from earliest infancy immersed in experience which determines what shall excite them as stimulus. "They become capable," as Mr. McDougall says, [14] "of being initiated, not only by the perception of objects of the kind which directly excite the innate disposition, the natural or native excitants of the instinct, but also by ideas of such objects, and by perceptions and by ideas of objects of other kinds." ”

“ From the point of view here adopted, the recent discussions and controversies over the problems of “instinct and intelligence” have been much muddled by the arbitrary denial of conscious elements to an instinctive process, and by the acceptation of consciousness or conscious experience as the criterion of intelligence. In this view instinct and intelligence become contrasted concepts which to my way of thinking they are not necessarily at all. If it is admitted that instinct is an innate disposition, its contrasted quality is that which is acquired and not the quality of consciousness. ”

“ The principal thing is the innate aptitude to perceive things and to form ideas, i. e., the innate intellect. By aptitude (Anlage) , however, can be understood nothing else at present than a manner of reacting, a sort of capability or excitability, impressed upon the central organs of the nervous system after repeated association of nervous excitations (through a great many generations in the same way) .
The brain comes into the world provided with a great number of impressions upon it. ”

“ That which is not born, which the mind possesses, not acquired by its own labor, nor by impressions coming from the exterior, but by the immediate gift of the author of its nature; the innate is opposed to the acquired, and to inquire if there are innate ideas is to inquire if we have in our mind ideas, before receiving any impressions or doing any act. ”

“ So is it, prior to experience, with the categories into which our experience comes to be inserted. Let us adopt then words sanctioned by usage, and give the distinction between intelligence and instinct this more precise formula: Intelligence, in so far as it is innate, is the knowledge of a form; instinct implies the knowledge of a matter. ”

“ Still only in man does intelligence reign supreme and clearly show its innate powers. But even in man certain realms, like those of the internal organs, are rarely invaded by consciousness, but are normally left to the control of reflex action. ”

“ If it be impossible to think without the idea of being, it exists prior to any reflex act, and it cannot have sprung from reflection. The idea of being must therefore be innate. Let us investigate this question. ”

“ Every instinctive process has the three aspects of all mental processes, the cognitive, the affective, and the conative. Now, the innate psychophysical disposition, which is an instinct, may be regarded as consisting of three corresponding parts, an afferent, a central, and a motor or efferent part, whose activities are the cognitive, the affective, and the conative features respectively of the total instinctive process. ”

“ Thus where a motive emerges at all into consciousness, that from which we may presume that instinctive activities are performed is not any foreknowledge of their end and purpose, but the gratification of an immediate and pressing need, the satisfaction of a felt want.
We have, so far, been concerned merely with the various kinds of activity presented by men and animals, and with some of their characteristics. The organism, in virtue of its organization, has an inherited groundwork of innate capacity. ”

“ Similarly the instincts of acquisition and self-assertion are not satisfied and their urge persists until their ends are gained—the acquisition of certain objects in the one case and self-display or domination of other individuals or situations in the other case. Obviously the instincts and other innate dispositions have a biological significance, ontogenetically and phylogenetically, in that they serve the preservation of the individual and species and the perpetuation of the latter. And obviously in the drive to satisfy their aims they determine and govern behavior. ”

“ I call this consciousness innate, although it is acquired. The point that I wish to impress on the reader is that the difference generally made between innate and acquired qualities is not so extraordinary that the innate need not to be acquired and the acquired does not presuppose something innate. The one contradicts the other only in those brains who do not understand the positive outcome of philosophy. Such thinkers do not know how to make reasonable distinctions and exaggerate in consequence. ”

“ There are thus no innate ideas, and no extranate ideas; but every idea or cognition has an element which is innate, and an element which is not so—every cognition, in short, is both innate and extranate—is a synthesis constituted by an a priori part and an a posteriori part. ”

“ But, in fact, the knowledge of the causality of all things is innate wisdom the same as that of the color of all white and black horses. At the same time it must be observed that every innate knowledge is in part acquired, and every acquired knowledge in part innate, so that both kinds intermingle and form one category. ”

“ From this point of view the most fruitful conception of the structure of personality is that which views it as built up of dynamic units which may be classed as primary and secondary. The primary units are the innate psychophysiological arrangements or mechanisms which we have agreed to call the instincts, or innate tendencies or dispositions, in many of which are incorporated the emotions and other affects. ”

“ As his innate psychic powers unfold and develop he will be almost instinctively led in the particular directions in which these powers may find the opportunity for the best form of expression and manifestation. ”

“ To allege that there is such a difference, no more implies the doctrine of innate ideas, than to say that the brain of a man is more fitted to discern external objects than a block of marble, imports that there are innate ideas in the brain, or in the block of marble. ”

“ The extreme doctrine of innate ideas allows nothing to foreign sources, but finds the origin of all cognition in the mind itself; the extreme doctrine of sensation allows nothing to the mind itself, but finds the origin of all cognition in foreign sources. ”

“ Here, rather late, I will introduce McDougall's definition of an instinct:—
'Instinct is an innate psycho-physical tendency to pay attention to objects of a certain class, to experience emotional excitement of peculiar quality on such perceptions, and to act or have an impulse to act in a particular way with regard to that object.'
We can see that instinct suffices for the bird or insect, living almost entirely in the unconscious, to carry on the important affairs of life. ”

“ The characters which I have used as a means of distinguishing the instincts which are especially obvious in the innate behaviour of Man resemble in many respects the characters of protopathic sensibility, of a person who is dependent on the activity of the thalamus or of the isolated spinal cord, and in the domain of pure physiology the characters of the isolated nerve and of the heart. ”

“ The physical brain with its associated nervous system possesses innate capacity for response to mind ministry just as the developing mind of a personality possesses a certain innate capacity for spirit receptivity and therefore contains the potentials of spiritual progress and attainment. Intellectual, social, moral, and spiritual evolution are dependent on the mind ministry of the seven adjutant spirits and their superphysical associates.
7. EVOLUTIONARY MIND LEVELS
The seven adjutant mind-spirits are the versatile mind ministers to the lower intelligent existences of a local universe. ”

“ Only when these activities are performed at the bidding of impulse, through no instruction and from no tendency to imitation, can they, strictly speaking, be termed instinctive. The more uniform the conditions of ancestral life, and the more highly developed the organism when it enters upon the scene of active existence, the more likely are the innate capacities to manifest themselves at once and without training as perfect instincts. ”

“ The Innate is [Pg 220] powerless to protect that body from harm—it requires the expression of an Innate Intelligence through the educated brain of some other person to bring about an adaptation to circumstances and protect the unconscious man. In this case the educated mind of one individual is substituted for that of the other and the desired end is accomplished. This educated function could not be expressed in the unconscious man because of the inability of Innate Intelligence to be functioning through the educated brain. ”

“ These concepts are not innate; because no idea can be innate, for the reason that several peripheral impressions are necessary for the formation of even a single perception. They are, however, inherited. ”

“ The instincts and other innate dispositions which are fundamental factors are, as we have seen, multiform, and any one of them may provide the motivating force which activates subconscious as well as conscious processes. ”

“ That innate ideas may exist cannot in the slightest degree be denied: it is, indeed, a fact. All the ideas of animals, which are induced by instinct, are innate and immediate: something presented to the mind, a desire to attain which is at the same time given. The new-born lamb and foal have such innate ideas, which lead them to follow their mother and suck the teats. ”

“ Nevertheless in the present state of the subject I believe we shall do best to take as the distinguishing mark of instinct its innate character, even though this character be biological rather than psychological. We shall do best if we devote our inquiries to the attempt to distinguish different kinds of instinct according to their psychological character. It should be our task to analyse the general group of instincts into its component parts just as it has been the main task of psychologists hitherto to analyse the different forms of intelligent behaviour. ”

“ No completely satisfactory explanation of the phenomena with which this book deals has as yet been formulated, but the elucidation of the problems of transformation, collected from many sources, should be sought primarily in the latent power innate in man which enables him to exert or project thought-forces, but little understood to-day, of which, however, hypnotism and suggestion are the most familiar forms of manifestation. ”

“ Just as the faculty of thinking is innate in the child, and grows with its development, so mankind's faculty of thought grows and has hitherto expressed itself in a language which gave only instinctive conceptions of the composition of the human brain and of its functions. ”

“ Let us remark that, in its origin, the “knowledge” which we take in its lowest degree has only a practical value; sensation is a monitor, an aid, an instrument, a weapon with only one aim—the preservation of the individual,—and completely subordinated to that end; otherwise, it is nothing but a useless manifestation, a luxury. The nexus between the sensations and the organic and motor reactions is therefore innate—i.e., it results from the very constitution of the animal. If it fails, the conditions of existence are at fault. ”