Once, indeed, he does get up to the level of birds. On page 255 of the book[43] which contains the most complete expression of his theories, he says: “The only instance of pure cognition, as distinct from recognition, are those in which a creature is confronted for the first time with an object of the kind that evokes an instinctive reaction.... As when the hen nightingale hears for the first time the song of the male.” We are back to a first time, so for the moment are freed from habit. But “instinctive reaction” evoked by an object in the environment promptly takes us in charge. If the hen nightingale has no X, neither have we. She is merely a concrete example of the class “creature,” to which we unquestionably belong. And obviously the hen can pay no attention to objects in which she has no instinctive interest, since it is instinct which “determines” the disposition to attend. But what if the hen sees a snake as well as hears a song? Can reason dig a channel for her striving which will lead her to make a detour on her way past snake towards song? Is Reason the X? Impossible. “Reason is not a conative [striving] energy.” Then it has no power, it cannot dig ditches. It cannot even control attention, since that is the yes-man of instinct, the only thing having power which we have yet encountered. So if the hen nightingale decides to risk the possibility of laying unfertilized eggs rather than the possibility of making a snake’s dinner--if she turns a deaf ear to the song of the male and simply goes away from there, it will be because her instinct of self-preservation proved a stronger and a quicker ditch-digger and trend-giver for her hormic impulses than did her sexual or maternal instincts. Or perhaps it was her instinct of self-regard which led her to take wing. No doubt it will be argued that it was Reason which put before her the probable consequences of coming too close to a snake, reason based on experience or observation. Let us suppose that Reason did have this information--though I don’t see how a powerless reason could acquire anything,--what is it going to do with it? Call it to the hen’s attention? It cannot. Her attention wears the shackles of instinct. She moves without waiting to know. Moving without knowing why is the very core of instinctive behavior. And yet McDougall assures us[44] that “conative [striving] behavior is indicative of an energy that works teleologically [i. e. purposefully] and which is therefore radically different from the energies which physical science conceives as working always mechanistically.” He loves to console himself with sentences like this one. We grow more rational and less instinctive as we grow older. How perfectly true. But McDougall brings it about by having Reason “waken” in a world where no energy is required to amass and classify data and then bring them to the attention of an X in the face of thirteen instincts which among them possess all the power there is.