Instinct is not a cerebral or mental mechanism implanted by Nature, so that the instinctive action could be executed without individual (if also unconscious) mental activity and without an idea of the purpose of the action, after the manner of a machine,—the end being conceived once for all by Nature or a Providence, which had so contrived the psychical organisation that only a mechanical use of the means remained to the individual. The suggestion now is, that a psychical, not a physical, organisation is the cause of instinct. This explanation would be at once acceptable, if any instinct appertaining to an animal were functional without intermission. This is not true, however, of any instinct, for each waits upon a motive; which, according to our view, signifies the occurrence of appropriate external circumstances making possible the attainment of the end by those means which instinct wills; not till then is instinct functional as actual will, with action at its heels; before the motive is present, instinct remains latent, as it were, and is not functional. The motive appears in the mind in the form of sensuous presentation, and the connection is constant between the active instinct and all sense-perceptions, which indicate that the opportunity has arrived for the attainment of the purpose of the instinct. The psychical mechanism would accordingly have to be sought in this constant connection. We should again have to imagine a sort of keyboard; the struck keys would be the motives, and the resounding notes the functional instincts. This might be satisfactory in spite of the remarkable fact that keys altogether different give out the same sound, if only instinct were really comparable to definite tones, i.e., if one and the same instinct really always reacted in one and the same way on the appropriate motives. This, however, is not the case, but the only constant element is the unconscious purpose of the instinct; the instinct itself, however, like the willing of the means, varies just as much as the means to be appropriately applied vary according to the external circumstances. An hypothesis which rejects the unconscious idea of the end in each single case is accordingly condemned; for if it were desired to retain in addition the idea of this mental mechanism, for every variation and modification of the instinct a special constant arrangement according to external circumstances, a new key with a tone of another timbre would have to be inserted, whereby the mechanism would be infinitely complicated. That, however, with every variation in the means selected by instinct the end is constant should be a sufficiently clear indication, that such an endless mental complexity is not needed, but in lieu thereof the unconscious representation of an end is all that need be assumed.
Thus, e.g., for the bird which has laid its eggs, the constant end is to hatch the chickens; accordingly, if the external temperature is insufficient, it sits upon them, a proceeding omitted only in very warm countries, because the animal sees the goal of its instinct attained without its assistance. In warm countries many birds only brood by night. With us, too, if by chance small birds have made their nests in hot forcing-houses, they sit but little or not at all. How repugnant is the supposition of a mechanism which constrains the bird to brood as soon as the temperature falls below a certain degree; how simple and clear the assumption of an unconscious purpose which compels the willing of the appropriate means, but of which process only the final term, as a will immediately preceding action, comes into consciousness I In South Africa the sparrow begirds its nest with thorns as a protection against snakes and apes. The eggs laid by the cuckoo always resemble in size, colour, and marking the eggs of the nest wherein they are laid; e.g., in that of Sylvia rufa, they are white with violet spots; of Sylvia hippolais, rose-coloured with black spots; of Begulus ignicapellus, dark red; and the resemblance is so perfect that the eggs are scarcely to be distinguished save by the structure of the shell. And yet Brehm enumerates some fifty species of birds in whose nests cuckoos’ eggs were found (Illustrirtes Thierleben, vol. iv. p. 197). Only through an oversight, when the cuckoo is surprised, is an egg ever deposited in a wrong nest, as well as occasionally left to perish on the ground, if the mother was unable to find a suitable nest at the right time.—Huber by special contrivances prevented bees from carrying on their instinctive mode of building from above downwards, whereupon they built from below upwards, and even horizontally. Where the outermost cells are attached to the roof of the hive or lean against the wall, the prisms, which are agglutinated together by their base alone, are not hexagonal but, pentagonal, for more durable fastening. In autumn bees lengthen the existing honey cells, if there are not enough of them; in spring they shorten them again in order to obtain broader passages between the combs. If the honeycombs have become too heavy, they replace the waxen walls of the highest (supporting) cells by thicker ones, formed of wax and propolis. If working-bees are introduced into the cells destined for drones, the workers apply the corresponding flat rooflets instead of the round ones belonging to the drones. In the autumn they regularly kill the drones, but allow them to live if the queen is lost, that they may impregnate the young queen which is to be reared from the larvæ of female workers. Huber observed that they barred the entrance of their hive against raids of hawk-moths with artificial constructions of wax and propolis; they only carry in propolis when they want to make any improvements or for special purposes. Spiders and caterpillars also show a remarkable skill in repairing their ruined web, which is quite a different kind of work from the first manufacture of a web.
The examples cited, which might be indefinitely added to, sufficiently prove that instincts are not actions mechanically performed in accordance with fixed rules, but that they are rather very closely adapted to circumstances, and are capable of such great modifications and variations, that they sometimes seem to be converted into their opposites. Many will be inclined to ascribe this modification to conscions reflection on the part of the animals; and certainly in animals more highly endowed in most cases a combination of instinctive activity and conscious reflection is not to be denied. However, I believe that the examples adduced satisfactorily prove that there are also many cases where, without any intervention of conscious reflection, the ordinary and extraordinary actions arise from the same source; that they are either both true instinct or both results of conscious reflection. Or is it really a different power which causes the bee to build in the middle hexagonal, at the edge pentagonal prisms; which leads the bird to brood over its eggs in the one set of circumstances, and not to brood in the other set; which causes the bees now pitilessly to murder their brethren, now to give them their life; which teaches birds the architecture of their species and their special measures of precaution; which leads the spider to spin its web, and mend it when injured? If it be granted that the modifications of instinct, together with its most usual fundamental form, which is often quite indeterminable, spring from a single source, then the allegation of conscious reflection is self-refuted later on, where the same objection is brought against instinct in general. It may, perhaps, not be improper to anticipate here the conclusion of a subsequent chapter, namely, that instinct and organic formative activity contain one and the same principle, only manifested under different circumstances, and that they shade into one another without any definite boundaries. Admit this, and it is evident that instinct cannot depend on the organisation of the body or of the brain, since it would be much more correct to say that organisation arises through a manifestation of instinct. This, however, only by the way.—
On the other hand, we have now to direct our attention again more closely to the notion of a psychical mechanism, when it will appear that, apart from the fact that it explains very little, it is so obscure that it hardly conveys any idea at all. The motive appears in the mind in the form of a conscious sensuous presentation. This is the first term of the process; the last term appears as conscious will to some particular action. Both, however, are quite heterogeneous, and have nothing in common with ordinary motivation, which consists exclusively in this—that the idea of pleasure or displeasure begets the desire to attain the former and avoid the latter. In instinct, pleasure, for the most part, appears as
a concomitant phenomenon, although, as we have already seen, it is not at all necessary; but the full power and grandeur of instinct is only shown in the sacrifice of the individual. But the real problem is here a far deeper one, for every idea of a pleasure presupposes that this pleasure has been already experienced. It follows again from this that in the former case a will was present, in the satisfaction of which pleasure consisted, and whence the will comes before the pleasure is known, and without a bodily pain, as in the case of hunger, urgently demanding relief, is the very question, since one may see in the case of any solitary animal that the instinctive impulses appear before it can have got to know the pleasure of their satisfaction. In instinct there must, therefore, be a causal connection between the sensuous presentation which serves as motive and the will to act instinctively, with which the pleasure of the satisfaction that follows has nothing to do. This causal connection, as we know from our human instincts, does not enter experientially into consciousness; consequently, if it is to be styled a mechanism, it can only be either a (non-conscious) mechanical conduction and conversion of the vibrations of the presented motive into the vibrations of the willed action in the brain, or an unconscious mental mechanism. In the first case, it would be very wonderful that this transaction should remain unconscious, since the process is so powerful that the will resulting from it overcomes all other considerations, every other will, and such cerebral vibrations always become conscious. It is also difficult to form an idea of the way in which this conversion could take place, so that the end set up once for all should be attained by the resulting will with the varying circumstances. If the other case,—an unconscious mental mechanism,—be assumed, the process cannot well be conceived under any other form than that which holds good of mind in general, thinking and willing. Between the conscious motive and the will to the instinctive action a causal connection has to be imagined by means of unconscious ideation and volition, and I know not how this connection can be more simply conceived than by represented and willed purpose. We have now reached the mechanism peculiar to mind, and immanent of Logic, and have found the unconscious idea of purpose to be the indispensable link in the case of each single instinctive action. Accordingly, the notion of a dead, external, preordained mental mechanism is abolished of itself, and changed into the immanent mental life of Logic; and we have reached the only remaining mode of conceiving a real instinct: Instinct is conscious willing of the means to an unconsciously willed end. This conception explains in an unforced and simple way the whole problem offered by instinct, or, more correctly, in thus declaring the true nature of instinct everything problematical vanishes. In a separate essay on Instinct, the notion of unconscious mental activity, as yet unfamiliar to our educated public, would perhaps arouse opposition; but here, where in each chapter new facts are adduced, proving the existence of this unconscious mental activity and its striking significance, any scruple due to the novelty of this thought will be evanescent.
Although compelled decidedly to reject the notion that instinct is merely the action of a pre-arranged mechanism, I did not at all intend to exclude the supposition of constitutional tendencies of the brain, of the ganglia, and of the body as a whole, determining the nervous current more easily and more conveniently into one channel rather than into another. This predisposition is then either a result of habit, graving its lines deeper and deeper, and at last leaving indelible traces behind it, either in the special individual or by inheritance in a series of generations, or it is expressly called forth by the unconscious formative impulse, in order to facilitate action in a particular direction. The latter case will have more application to the external organisation—e.g., the weapons and working implements of animals—the former more to the molecular constitution of brain and ganglia, especially in respect to the ever-recurring fundamental power of instinct—e.g., the hexagonal form of the cell of the bee. We shall see later on (B. Chap. iv.) that the sum of individual modes of reaction on all possible kinds of motives is called the individual character, and (C. Chap. xi. 2) that this character is essentially dependent on a constitution of brain and body in lesser degree acquired by the individual by habit, in greater part inherited. Since, now, in the case of instinct, we have to do with a mode of reaction on certain motives, we may speak here too of character, although we are not so much concerned with the character of the individual as of the race. Accordingly, in the case of character in respect of instinct, the question is not how one individual is distinguished from another, but how one animal class is distinguished from another.
If such a predisposition of brain and body for certain active tendencies be called a mechanism, in a certain sense that may be allowed to pass; but it should be remarked: (1.) that all deviations from the customary form of any instinct, so far as they cannot be ascribed to conscious reflection, are not specifically provided for in this mechanism; (2.) that inheritance is only possible through the continual guidance of the embryonic development by a well-adjusted unconscious formative activity (certainly again influenced by the predispositions given in the germ); (3.) that the engraining of the tendency in the transmitting individual could only take place by long habituation to the same mode of action, accordingly instinct without auxiliary mechanism is the cause of the origin of the auxiliary mechanism; (4.) that all instinctive actions which only occur rarely or merely once in the lifetime of an individual (e.g., those relative to propagation and metamorphosis in the case of the lower animals, and all such instinctive forbearance when a contrary effect would be followed by death) cannot well be engrained by habit, but a ganglionic constitution predisposing thereto could only be produced by purposive creation; (5.) that even the ready-made auxiliary mechanisn does not precisely necessitate, but merely predisposes the Unconscious to this particular instinctive action (as is shown by deviations from the type), so that the unconscious purpose always remains stronger than the ganglionic predisposition, and only finds occasion to choose among the means lying ready to hand those nearest and most suitable to the constitution.
We now approach more closely the question we have reserved to the last: “Is there such a thing as a true instinct, or are the so-called instinctive actions only results of conscious premeditation?” In favour of the latter hypothesis there might be cited the well-known experience that the more limited the range of the conscious mental activities of any being, the stronger is wont to be the executive faculty in the particular limited direction relatively to the extent of the total capacity. This experience, frequently confirmed in the case of man, and certainly applicable to animals also, finds its explanation in the circumstance that the degree of this performance is only in part dependent on the mental structure, in part also, however, on the exercise and improvement of the natural disposition in this special direction. Thus, e.g., a philologist is unskilful in legal processes of thinking, a naturalist or mathematician in philological, an abstract philosopher in poetic invention, quite apart from special talent, solely in consequence of one-sided mental cultivation and practice. Now the narrower the sphere of the mental activity of any being, the more is the whole culture and training concentrated in this single direction, consequently it is no wonder that the resulting performances in this line are enhanced through the narrowing of the field of view relatively to the total capacity. But if this phenomenon be used to explain the action of instinct, the limitation “relatively to the total capacity” must not be left out of sight. Since, however, the lower the rank in the animal scale the less the total capacity, and yet the instinctive performances remain in respect to perfection tolerably equal at all stages of the animal kingdom, whereas those effects which unquestionably proceed from conscious reflection are manifestly proportional to the mental capacity, it seems to follow that in the case of instinct we have to do with some other principle than conscious understanding. We further see that the conscious performances of animals are in fact similar in kind to our own; that they are made possible through teaching and instruction and are perfected by exe
rcise. Even in the case of animals it is said understanding only comes with years. On the other hand, in the case of instinctive actions, the peculiarity is just this, that they are performed just as perfectly by animals growing up in solitude as by such as have enjoyed the instruction of their parents, and that the success is as great on the very first occasion, prior to all experience and exercise, as at any later period. Here too, the difference in principle is unmistakable. Then experience teaches: the more limited and weak an understanding, the more sluggish the flow of ideas, i.e., the slower and heavier its conscious thinking. This is illustrated both by human beings of different mental grasp and by the brutes, so far as instinct does not come into play. But instinct has this peculiarity, that it never delays and hesitates, but instantaneously operates, if the motive for its operation consciously occurs. This rapidity of resolution in instinctive action is met with alike in the lowest and in the highest animals. This is another circumstance pointing to a difference in principle of instinct and conscious reflection.
Lastly, as concerns the pitch of performance, a hurried glance at once detects the want of proportion between the same and the stage of mental development. Look at the caterpillar of the Emperor Moth (Saturnia pavonia minor). It devours the leaves of the shrub whereon it was hatched; at the most, moves when it rains to the underside of the leaf, and changes its skin from time to time; that is its whole life, which hardly allows one to look for even the most limited education of the intelligence. But now it spins its cocoon for the chrysalis state, and constructs for itself a double arch of bristles meeting at their apices, very easy to open from within, but which opposes on the outside sufficient resistance to any attempts to penetrate into it. If this contrivance were a result of its conscious understanding, it would require the following train of thought: “I shall enter the chrysalis state, and, immovable as I am, be at the mercy of every adversary; therefore I will spin myself a cocoon. Since, however, as butterfly I shall not be able to make a breach in the web either by mechanical or chemical means as many other caterpillars do, I must leave an aperture for egress; but that my persecutors may not make use of it, I shall close it with elastic bristles, which I can easily bend apart from the inside, but which will offer resistance externally, according to the theory of the arch.” That is really asking too much of the poor caterpillar! And yet each step of this argumentation is indispensable if the result is to be correctly got at.
Philosophy of the Unconscious Page 12
