It seems difficult, then, to express clearly what is the essential
difference between instinctive and intelligent behaviour; and it is
doubtless the case that reasoned experiments and observations are
still too few to enable us to make sound deductions. But it certainly
seems as if we ought to think of instinctive actions as having evolved
concomitantly with the structure of the organs which effect them:
they are those _inheritable adaptations of behaviour_ which are bound
up with--are indeed the same things as--inheritable adaptations
of structure. In performing them the instinctively acting animal
is doubtless aware of its own activity, but we must think of this
awareness as being of much the same nature as our consciousness of the
automatic activities of our own bodies--the rhythmic activities of the
heart and respiratory organs, or the actions of our arms and legs in
walking, for instance. It is knowledge of the inborn ability of the
organisms to use an inborn bodily tool.
In the intelligent action we certainly see something different from
this. The organ or organ-system which carries out such an action
functions in a manner which is different from that for which it was
evolved: the action is the conscious adaptation of the organ for some
form of activity new to it, and this acquirement of activity seems
to be non-inheritable--at least it is non-inheritable in the sense
in which we speak of acquired characters being non-inherited. It is
accompanied, while it is being acquired, by a consciousness which is
deliberative, and is different from that awareness of its own activity
which accompanies the acting of the instinctive animal--the knowledge
that it is acting in an effective manner. It does not seem as if the
animal in so acting is aware of the relation of the bodily tool to the
object on which it is acting. But intelligence seems to imply more than
this: it implies the knowledge of the organism that some parts of its
body bear certain relations to the parts of the environment on which
they are acting, and that these relations are variable ones and may be
the objects of conscious choice.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ORGANIC AND THE INORGANIC
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account