Wherever the mind is elevated enough to discriminate; wherever several distinct sensory elements must combine to discharge the reflex arc; wherever, instead of plumping into action instantly at the first rough intimation of what _sort_ of a thing is there, the agent waits to see which _one_ of its kind it is and what the _circumstances_ are of its appearance; wherever different individuals and different circumstances can impel him in different ways; wherever these are the conditions--we have a masking of the elementary constitution of the instinctive life. The whole story of our dealings with the lower wild animals is the history of our taking advantage of the way in which they judge of everything by its mere label, as it were, so as to ensnare or kill them. Nature, in them, has left matters in this rough way, and made them act _always_ in the manner which would be _oftenest_ right. There are more worms unattached to hooks than impaled upon them; therefore, on the whole, says Nature to her fishy children, bite at _every_ worm and take your chances. But as her children get higher, and their lives more precious, she reduces the risks. Since what seems to be the same object may be now a genuine food and now a bait; since in gregarious species each individual may prove to be either the friend or the rival, according to the circumstances, of another; since any entirely unknown object may be fraught with weal or woe. _Nature implants contrary impulses to act on many classes of things_, and leaves it to slight alterations in the conditions of the individual case to decide which impulse shall carry the day. Thus, greediness and suspicion, curiosity and timidity, coyness and desire, bashfulness and vanity, sociability and pugnacity, seem to shoot over into each other as quickly, and to remain in as unstable an equilibrium, in the higher birds and mammals as in man. All are impulses, congenital, blind at first, and productive of motor reactions of a rigorously determinate sort. _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; _not, however, because he has no instincts--rather because he has so many that they block each other's path_.