Instinct

“ It is instinct which brings all living entities into relation with something sub-conscious in their own nature.
Under the pressure of instinct man recognizes the animal in himself, the plant in himself, and even a strange affinity with the inorganic and the inanimate. ”

“ 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. It is partly for this reason that it is so important to understand the fundamental position of instinct in prompting both animal and human behaviour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Or, if such important and, at first view, seemingly intelligent action can be explained as unreasoning instinct, why cannot many other actions of the lower animals be thus explained? Why may not nearly all, if not all of them, be thus explained, and consciousness be regarded as the exclusive property of man?
But how much of the action we term automatic, instinctive, or organic, reflex or "merely functional," can be positively asserted to have no admixture of consciousness? ”

“ Thus, according to the requirements necessitated by the habits of certain living creatures to an equivalent amount is their share of instinct. Reason differs from instinct as combining the effects of thought and reflection; this being a proof of consideration, while instinct is simply a direct emanation from the brain, confined to an impulse. ”

“ Instinct certainly involves some kind of mental operations, and by this feature it is clearly distinguished and differentiated from reflex action. One bold difference between instinct and reason, I contend, is that the actions of instinct are uniform, though performed by different individuals of the same species, while reason—however limited in its operations—leads to the performance of individualistic actions, limited to single personalities. ”

“ Because we can not understand the inwardness of their power, we assert that they act by the influence of instinct. The term instinct, as I would define it, is an expression applied by men to a series of senses which man possesses, but has not developed. ”

“ Though the instinct be different, yet still it is an instinct, which teaches a man to avoid the fire, as much as that which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery. ”

“ Instincts are the germs of habit, and when instinct would give rise to a reaction no longer useful, reason, abetted by new habit formation, in the normal mind, weakens instinct’s force; and the habit is discarded and the instinct gradually declines. ”

“ No doubt it is better to go back to that than to stop short before instinct as before an unfathomable mystery. But, though instinct is not within the domain of intelligence, it is not situated beyond the limits of mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And although it is true that instinct plays a larger part in the psychology of many animals than it does in the psychology of man, this fact is plainly of no importance in the present connection, where we are concerned only with identity of principle. ”

“ The instinct which has come into existence in order to produce and maintain the cohesion of the group is commonly known as the gregarious or the herd instinct. This is a complicated instinct which, according to the current opinion, [1] is represented in Man by three chief processes according as it is viewed from the three aspects from which we are accustomed to regard mental process. ”

“ It is instinct which impels the child to recognize in the smiles or the frowns of a countenance which meets his eyes, not only a being external to himself, but one whose looks elicit in him confidence or fear. And, as he instinctively interprets these physical phenomena, as tokens of things beyond themselves, so from the sensations attendant upon certain classes of his thoughts and actions he gains a perception of an external being, who reads his mind, to whom he is responsible, who praises and blames, who promises and threatens. ”

“ But when we seem to have grasped his point of view, when we have catalogued the memory, fear, instinct, perception, choice and volition, the whole intelligent edifice crumbles; for we are told that “we are not in a position to determine whether these various acts are accompanied by consciousness, or whether they follow as simple physiological processes.” To most of us fear, memory, choice, volition, imply something more than simple physiological processes; they imply not only consciousness, but highly elaborated consciousness. ”

“ But God’s beneficence endows them, first of all, with a nervous system; and, turning our attention to this, makes instinct immediately appear neither more nor less wonderful than all the other facts of life. ”

“ Whether we look to the growing child or to the ascending scale of animal life, we find that instinct shades into reason by imperceptible degrees, or, as Pope expresses it, that these principles are 'for ever separate, yet for ever near.' Nor is this other than the principles of evolution would lead us to expect, as I shall afterwards have abundant occasion to show. Here, however, we are only concerned with drawing what distinction we can between instinct and reason as these faculties are actually presented to our observation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From a broad philosophical point of view, instinct may be seen to work towards some great end, such as the preservation of the individual or the propagation of the race, but from the individual's own point of view, it is directed simply towards the performance of some particular act, or the accomplishment of some particular result. ”

“ These examples will serve as illustrations of pure instinct, and we will pass now to actions which are superior, but obviously similar, to the instinctive ones. Actions which are frequently repeated become habitual, and habits of long standing become so firmly fixed that the actions are performed unconsciously, and, as it were, instinctively. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is therefore evident that it is not for instinct alone to determine unconditionally all the phenomena that take place in man in the state of affection, and that on the contrary the will of man can place limits to instinct. When instinct only determines all phenomena in man, there is nothing more that can recall the person; there is only a physical creature before you, and consequently an animal; for every physical creature subject to the sway of instinct is nothing else. ”

“ There is a thing, universally recognized as existing, called instinct. All of the actions of animals and many of the actions of human beings spring from instinct. Instinct was given for self-preservation and defense. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If we speak of a 'true' instinct, a 'sound' or 'healthy' feeling of distrust, a 'true' sense of beauty or of the divine, our use of such epithets is proleptic. The 'true' instinct is one which may be converted into a reasoned knowledge. ”

“ The line of demarkation between instinct and reason is a mezzotint, reason being often instinctive, and instinct being as frequently flavoured with judgment, ‘Instinct is usually regarded as a special property of the lower animals, and contrasted with the conscious reason of man. ”

“ when we consider, that the experimental Reasoning itself, which we possess in common with Beasts, and on which the whole Conduct of Life depends, is nothing but a Species of Instinct or mechanical Power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves, and in its chief Operations; ”

“ The genesis of instinct, the development of memory and reason out of it, and the consolidation of rational actions and inferences into instinctive ones, are alike explicable on the single principle that the cohesion between psychical states is proportionate to the frequency with which the relation between the answering external phenomena has been repeated in experience. ”

“ If we suppose any habitual action to become inherited—and it can be shown that this does sometimes happen—then the resemblance between what originally was a habit and an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished. ”

“ IV If the development of the religious instinct and the development of the scientific instinct are alike natural, and if the possibility of the harmony of the two instincts is a verifiable fact of experience, how is it, one may ask, that there has ever been any dispute on the matter? ”

“ This mind capital of instinct with which the child comes into the world may be divided into the instinct to express ideas in bodily movements, instinctive interest in animals and nature, the instinct in rhythm, and the instinct for self-preservation (less highly developed in children than in animals.) ”

“ The instinctive bounty of intellect to animals, of course, renders them stationary as a community; as instinct implies a definite portion of intuitive sagacity, wisdom, or reason, commensurate to their wants and destination. The early manifestation of instinctive wisdom, is the best reply to those philosophers who have argued against its existence; for in a multitude of instances it is exhibited, anterior to the possibility of experience. ”

“ We have dwelt at some length upon this point, because it illustrates, in a most marvellous manner, the power of that inborn faculty we call instinct, which arrives, without training, at results so precisely agreeing with those of the highest efforts of our intellectual reasonings. ”

“ Our discussion should have made it clear that habit is acquired nature, while instinct is inherited nature. Habit is acquired tendency while instinct is inherited tendency. The possibility of acquiring habits is peculiarly a human characteristic. ”

“ According to the idea generally attached to the word instinct the faculty which this word expresses is considered as a light which illuminates and guides animals in their actions, and which is with them what reason is to us. No one has shown that instinct can be a force which calls into action ”

“ Purpose is writ large across the face of an instinct, and that purpose is always toward action. Whenever a situation arises which demands instantaneous action, the instinct is the means of securing it. Planted within the creature is a tendency which makes it perceive and feel and act in the appropriate way. ”

“ 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 ”