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falls below a certain height! How clear and simple, on the other hand, is the view that there is an unconscious purpose constraining the volition of the bird to the use of the fitting means, of which process, however, only the last link, that is to say, the will immediately preceding the action falls within the consciousness of the bird!

In South Africa the sparrow surrounds her nest with thorns as a defence against apes and serpents. The eggs of the cuckoo, as regards size, colour, and marking, invariably resemble those of the birds in whose nests she lays. Sylvia rufa, for example, lays a white egg with violet spots; Sylvia hippolais, a red one with black spots; Regulus ignicapellus, a cloudy red; but the cuckoo's egg is in each case so deceptive an imitation of its model, that it can hardly be distinguished except by the structure of its shell.

Huber contrived that his bees should be unable to build in their usual instinctive manner, beginning from above and working downwards; on this they began building from below, and again horizontally. The outermost cells that spring from the top of the hive or abut against its sides are not hexagonal, but pentagonal, so as to gain in strength, being attached with one base instead of two sides. In autumn

bees lengthen their existing honey cells if these are insufficient, but in the ensuing spring they again shorten them in order to get greater roadway between the combs. When the full combs have become too heavy, they strengthen the walls of the uppermost or bearing cells by thickening them with wax and propolis. If larvæ of working bees are introduced into the cells set apart for drones, the working bees will cover these cells with the flat lids usual for this kind of larva, and not with the round ones that are proper for drones. In autumn, as a general rule, bees kill their drones, but they refrain from doing this when they have lost their queen, and keep them to fertilise the young queen, who will be developed from larvæ that would otherwise have become working bees. Huber observed that they defend the entrance of their hive against the inroads of the sphinx moth by means of skilful constructions made of wax and propolis. They only introduce propolis when they want it for the execution of repairs, or for some other special purpose. Spiders and caterpillars also display marvellous dexterity in the repair of their webs if they have been damaged, and this requires powers perfectly distinct from those requisite for the construction of a new one.

The above examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but they are sufficient to establish the fact that instincts are not capacities rolled, as it were, off a reel mechanically, according to an invariable system, but that they adapt themselves most closely to the circumstances of each case, and are capable of such great modification and variation that at times they almost appear to cease to be instinctive.

Many will, indeed, ascribe these modifications to conscious deliberation on the part of the animals themselves, and it is impossible to deny that in the case of the more intellectually gifted animals there may be such a thing as a combination of instinctive faculty and conscious reflection. I think, however, the examples already cited are enough to show that often where the normal and the abnormal action springs from the same source, without any complication with conscious deliberation, they are either both instinctive or both deliberative.1 Or is that which prompts the bee to build hexagonal prisms in the middle of her comb something of an actually distinct cha

1 "Indessen glaube ich, dass die angeführten Beispiele zur Genüge beweisen, dass es auch viele Fälle giebt, wo ohne jede Complication mit der bewussten Ueberlegung die gewöhnliche und aussergewöhnliche Handlung aus derselben Quelle stammen, dass sie entweder beide wirklicher Instinct, oder beide Resultate bewusster Ueberlegung sind."-Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 76.

racter from that which impels her to build pentagonal ones at the sides? Are there two separate kinds of thing, one of which induces birds under certain circumstances to sit upon their eggs, while another leads them under certain other circumstances to refrain from doing so? And does this hold good also with bees when they at one time kill their brethren without mercy and at another grant them their lives? Or with birds when they construct the kind of nest peculiar to their race, and, again, any special provision which they may think fit under certain circumstances to take? If it is once granted that the normal and the abnormal manifestations of instinct-and they are often incapable of being distinguished-spring from a single source, then the objection that the modification is due to conscious knowledge will be found to be a suicidal one later on, so far as it is directed against instinct generally. It may be sufficient here to point out, in anticipation of remarks that will be found in later chapters, that instinct and the power of organic development involve the same essential principle, though operating under different circumstances -the two melting into one another without any definite boundary between them. Here, then, we have conclusive proof that instinct

does not depend upon organisation of body or brain, but that, more truly, the organisation is due to the nature and manner of the instinct.

2

On the other hand, we must now return to a closer consideration of the conception of a psychical mechanism.' And here we find that this mechanism, in spite of its explaining so much, is itself so obscure that we can hardly form any idea concerning it. The motive enters the mind by way of a conscious sensual impression; this is the first link of the process; the last link appears as the conscious motive of an action. Both, however, are entirely unlike, and neither has anything to do with ordinary motivation, which consists exclusively in the desire that springs from a conception either of pleasure or dislike the former prompting to the attainment of any object, the latter to its avoidance. In the case of instinct, pleasure is for the most part a concomitant phenomenon; but it is not so always, as we have

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1 "Dagegen haben wir nunmehr unseren Blick noch einmal schärfer auf den Begriff eines psychischen Mechanismus zu richten, und da zeigt sich, dass derselbe, abgesehen davon, wie viel er erklärt, so dunkel ist, dass man sich kaum etwas dabei denken kann." Philosophy of the Unconscious, 3d ed., p. 76.

2 "Das Endglied tritt als bewusster Wille zu irgend einer Handlung auf; beide sind aber ganz ungleichartig und haben mit der gewöhnlichen Motivation nichts zu thun, welche ausschliesslich darin besteht, dass die Vorstellung einer Lust oder einer Unlust das Begehren erzeugt, erstere zu erlangen, letztere sich fern zu halten."-Ibid., p. 76.

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