Sense, therefore, and not intelligence, is the regulatory principle
of instinct. To recognize causal and telic relationships is the
prerogative of a superorganic intelligence. The transcendental link
by which a useful means is referred to an ulterior end is something
that cannot be _sensed_, but only _understood_. An animal, therefore,
acts _toward_ an end, not _on account of_ an end. Nature, however,
has compensated for this ignorance by implanting in each species of
animal a special teleological disposition, by reason of which objects
and actions, which are, under normal conditions, objectively useful
to the individual, or the species, become invested for the animal
with a subjective aspect of agreeableness, while objects and actions,
which are normally harmful, are invested with a subjective aspect
of repulsiveness. The qualities of serviceableness and pleasantness
_happen_, so far as the animal is concerned, to be united in one
and the same concrete object or action, but the animal is only
aware of the pleasantness, which appeals to its senses, and not of
the serviceableness, which does not. Thus, in the example already
cited, the dog suffering from tapeworms eats the herb known as Common
Wormwood, not because it is aware of the remedial efficacy of the herb,
but simply because the odor and flavor of the plant appeal to the
animal in its actual morbid condition, ceasing to do so, however, when
the latter regains the state of health. How different is the action
of the man whose blood is infected with malarial parasites and who
takes quinine, not because the bitter taste of the alkaloid appeals
to his palate, but solely because he has his future cure explicitly
in view! “Finally,” says Weld, “the more we learn about instincts the
more apparent it becomes that the situations from which they proceed
are meaningful, but we need not suppose that the organism is aware of
the meaning. The chick in the egg feels (we may only guess as to its
nature) a vague discomfort, and the complicated reaction by which it
makes its egress from the shell is released.” (Encycl. Am., v. 15, p.
169.)
Recapitulating, then, we may define instinct as a psycho-organic
propensity, not acquired by education or experience, but congenital
by inheritance and identical in all members of the same zoölogical
species, having as its physical basis the specific nervous organization
of the animal and as its psychic basis a teleological coördination
of the cognitive, emotional, and motor functions, in virtue of
which, given the proper physiological state of the organism and the
presence of an appropriate environmental stimulus, an animal, without
consciousness of purpose, is impelled to the inception, and regulated
in the performance, of complicated behavior which is sensually
gratifying and, under normal circumstances, simultaneously beneficial
to the individual, or the race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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