I.—Definition of Instinctive Behaviour
There are probably few subjects which have afforded more material for wonder and pious admiration than the instinctive endowments of animals. “I look upon instinct,” wrote Addison in one of his graceful essays, “as upon the principle of gravitation in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, nor from any laws of mechanism, but as an immediate impression from the first Mover and the Divine Energy acting in the creatures.”[21] In like manner Spence said: “We may call the instincts of animals those faculties implanted in them by the Creator, by which, independent of instruction, observation or experience, and without a knowledge of the end in view, they are all alike impelled to the performance of certain actions tending to the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the species.”[22] According to such views, instinct is an ultimate principle the natural genesis of which is beyond the pale of explanation. But similar views were, at the time these passages were written, held to apply, not only to animal behaviour, but also to animal structure. The development of the stag’s antler, or of the insect’s wing, was also regarded as “an immediate impression from the first Mover and the Divine Energy acting in the creatures.” This view, however, is, neither in the case of structure nor in the case of behaviour, that entertained by modern science. It is indeed an expression of opinion concerning the metaphysics of instinct. Leaving the question of ultimate origin precisely where it stood in the times of Addison and of Spence, modern science seeks to trace the natural antecedents of all natural phenomena, and regards structure and behaviour alike as the products of evolution, endeavouring to explain the manner of their genetic origin in terms of progressive heredity.
Omitting, therefore, all reference to problems which, however important, are beyond the limits of scientific inquiry,[23] we may take as a basis for further discussion Spence’s definition, according to which the instincts of animals are those faculties by which, independent of instruction, observation, or experience, and without a knowledge of the end in view, they are all alike impelled to the performance of certain actions tending to their own well-being and the preservation of the species.
Let us first consider the reference of instinctive actions to a faculty by which animals are said to be impelled to their performance. Paley also defined instinct as “a propensity prior to experience.” And unquestionably in the popular conception it is usual to attribute instinctive acts to some such conscious cause. But it will be more convenient, for the present, to consider instinctive behaviour from the objective point of view, as it is presented to our observation; we may then proceed to the further consideration of the conscious concomitants which may be inferred. From the objective point of view, therefore, we may agree with Professor Groos, who says[24] that “the idea of consciousness must be rigidly excluded from any definition of instinct which is to be of practical utility,” since “it is always hazardous in scientific investigation to allow an hypothesis which cannot be tested empirically.” In this we have the support of Dr. and Mrs. Peckham, whose studies of the life-histories of spiders and wasps are models of careful and patient investigation. “Under the term Instinct,” they say, “we place all complex acts which are performed previous to experience, and in a similar manner by all members of the same sex and race, leaving out as non-essential, at this time, the question of whether they are or are not accompanied by consciousness.”[25]
It may be said, however, that some reference to the conscious aspect of instinctive behaviour is implied by saying that the acts are performed without instruction or experience. But the reference at present is wholly negative. We may say, as the result of observation, that instinctive acts are performed under such circumstances as exclude the possibility of guidance in the light of individual experience, and render it in the highest degree improbable that there exists any idea of the end to be attained. But this is a very different position from that of asserting the presence of a positive faculty or propensity which impels an animal to the performance of certain actions. This it is which, from the observational point of view, is unnecessary. For the reference of a given type of observed behaviour to a “propensity” so to behave or to a “faculty” of thus behaving, is no more helpful than the reference of the development of any given type of structure to a “potentiality” so to develop. We may, therefore, without loss of precision, simplify Spence’s definition by stating that instinctive behaviour is independent of instruction and experience, and tends to the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the species.
Let us next consider the clause which affirms that instinctive behaviour is prior to experience. This is well in line with the distinction now drawn by biologists between congenital and acquired characters. It refers them to the former category, and implies that the organic mechanism by which they are rendered possible is of germinal origin. This is not, however, universally admitted. Professor Wundt, for example, approaching the subject from the point of view afforded by the study of man and the higher animals, gives to the term a wider meaning, and so defines instinct as to include acquired habits. “Movements,” he says,[26] “which originally followed upon simple or compound voluntary acts, but which have become wholly or partly mechanized in the course of individual life, or of generic evolution, we term instinctive actions.” In accordance with this definition, instincts fall into two groups. Those “which, so far as we can tell, have been developed during the life of the individual, and in the absence of definite individual influences might have remained wholly undeveloped, may be called acquired instincts.” They have become instinctive through repetition. “To be distinguished from these acquired human instincts are others which are connate.” Now, there can be no question that behaviour which has become habitual through frequent repetition is frequently, in popular speech, described as instinctive. We hear it said that the experienced cyclist guides his machine instinctively. And the word is similarly used in many like cases. But we shall find it conducive to precision and clearness of thought to emphasize the distinction between what is acquired in the course of life and what is congenital in the race. And to this end we shall regard behaviour which has “become mechanized in the course of individual life” as due to acquired habit, reserving the term instinctive for such behaviour as is independent of individual experience. We shall, in short, so far accept Spence’s definition.
In this definition, as in those of the majority of naturalists, it seems to be further implied that instinctive behaviour is of a relatively definite kind, though it is no doubt subject to such variation as is found in animal structure and organization. Mr. Rutgers Marshall, however, in a recent work,[27] protests against any such implication, and urges that “this variableness is so wide that definiteness of reaction cannot for a moment be used as a differentia in relation to instinct without narrowing our conception of the bounds of instinct in a manner to be deplored.” “The actions,” he says, “connected with the preparation for self-defence, those connected with protection of the young, with nest-building, with migration, etc., these actions are surely to be classed as instinctive; and yet they are exceedingly variable and unpredictable in detail; all that we can predict is the general trend of the varying actions which result from varying stimuli under varying conditions, and which function to some determinate biological end.”
Mr. Marshall then proceeds to argue that we are “warranted in speaking of the ethical instincts, of the patriotic instincts, of the benevolent instincts, and of the artistic instincts;” and thus leads up to the position, to be further elaborated in his work, that there exists in man a religious instinct which has fulfilled a function of biological value in the development of our race. Now, here again there is much in popular usage of the words instinct and instinctive which lends support, for what it is worth, to Mr. Marshall’s very broad conception of the range of instinct. Again and again we hear, in the pulpit and elsewhere, of the religious instinct; we hear, too, of the benevolent, patriotic, and artistic instincts, and more besides. But what we are endeavouring to define is a type of behaviour which, as such, is prior to instruction and experience. Can we affirm that patriotic and religious behaviour conforms to such a type? Is it unquestionably congenital and not acquired? If we are forced to give negative answers to these questions we must regard Mr. Marshall’s conception of instinct (one inclusive of multifarious tendencies which have a biological value) as too broad and too vague to be of any service to us at this stage of our study of animal behaviour.
What, then, shall we understand by Spence’s phrase that instinct involves the performance of “certain actions”? And how far shall we accept it? We shall take it as implying so much definiteness of behaviour as renders instinctive acts susceptible of scientific investigation, and in this sense shall accept it with some modification of phraseology. We shall freely admit, however, the existence of variations of instinctive behaviour analogous to variations in animal structure. It is the occurrence of such variations that renders the natural selection of instinctive modes of behaviour conceivable. We shall also admit some, nay much, variation in detail. Take, for example, two of the cases which Mr. Marshall cites—nest-building and migration. Both involve, not merely a simple response to a given stimulus, but a complex sequence of actions. In detail there may be much variation even among members of the same species. And yet, can it be questioned that the behaviour as a whole is in each case relatively definite? May we not even say that it is remarkably definite? May we not even go further, and assert that only on the assumption that any given instinctive act is relatively definite, can we regard it as a subject for scientific investigation, and can we hope to distinguish it from other modes of behaviour?
The next point for consideration in Spence’s definition, which we have taken as our text, is his characterization of instinctive acts as “tending to the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the species.” Here we have Mr. Marshall with us, for he too lays stress on the fact that instinctive behaviour has reference to a definite biological end. But in saying that the biological end is the objective mark of an instinct,[28] he seems to be in error. Because, in the first place, there are other “objective marks,” and because, in the second place, this objective mark is not restricted to instinctive behaviour. According to Spence, a further characteristic of instinctive acts is that they are independent of instruction or experience; and this serves to differentiate them from other modes of behaviour which are also subservient to a biological end. Intelligent behaviour, not less than that which we term instinctive, has reference to a biological end. Many intelligent acts, for example, have for their object the well-being of the individual; many subserve race preservation; these bear, every whit as much as instinctive acts, the “objective mark” which Mr. Marshall regards as characteristic of instinct. And if we turn to his subjective criterion—the absence of any conception of the biological end which the behaviour subserves—Mr. Marshall’s position is equally untenable. There are thousands of acquired modes of behaviour, dependent on instruction or experience, in which there is, on the subjective side, so far as we can judge, no conception of the biological end to be attained. What can the animal in the early stages of intelligence know of biological ends? Mr. Marshall’s subjective criterion applies just as much to a wide range of intelligent behaviour as it does to instinctive actions.
In accepting, therefore, Spence’s statement that when animals behave instinctively they perform, without a knowledge of the end in view, certain actions tending to their own well-being and the preservation of the species, we must take it in connection with the preceding limitation, remembering that they are also performed without instruction and experience.
A further point for very brief consideration is suggested by the phrase in which Spence says that animals are all alike impelled to the performance of certain actions. As it stands it is too sweeping and general. Still, we do require some explicit statement of the facts which he had in mind when he wrote the words “all alike.” And we find it with sufficient exactness in Dr. Peckham’s definition, where he comprises under the category of instinctive behaviour “all complex acts which are performed previous to experience, and in a similar manner by all members of the same sex and race.” This places congenital behaviour in line with morphological structure as a subject for comparative treatment.
One more question remains. What shall we understand by “complex acts”? In the first place, it is well to restrict the term instinctive to co-ordinated actions; and this implies the presence of nerve-centres by which the co-ordination is effected. We thus exclude the organic behaviour of plants, since there is no evidence in the vegetable kingdom of co-ordinating centres. In the second place, the co-ordination is, as we have seen, congenital, and not acquired in the course of individual experience. Young water-birds, and indeed young chicks, as soon as they are born, and have recovered from the shock of birth, can swim with definite co-ordination of leg movements. Here the definiteness is not only congenital, but connate, if we use the latter term for an instinctive activity which is performed at or very shortly after birth. On the other hand, young swallows cannot fly at birth; they are then too immature, and their wings are not sufficiently developed. But when they are some three weeks old, and the wings have attained functional size and power, little swallows can fly with considerable if not perfect skill. The co-ordination is congenital, for it is not acquired in the course of individual experience; but it is not connate, since it is not exhibited at or shortly after birth. The term deferred may be applied to such congenital activities as are thus carried out when the animal has undergone a certain amount of further development after birth.
In the third place, it is customary to distinguish between such reflex actions as have already been briefly exemplified,[29] and instinctive behaviour. It is, however, by no means easy, if indeed it be possible, to draw any sharp and decisive line of demarcation. Instinct has indeed been well described by Mr. Herbert Spencer as compound reflex action; hence the distinction between instinctive and reflex behaviour turns in large degree on their relative complexity. It would seem, however, that whereas a reflex act—such as the withdrawal of the foot of a sleeping child when the sole is tickled—is a restricted and localized response, involving a particular organ or a definite group of muscles, and is initiated by a more or less specialized external stimulus; instinctive behaviour is a response of the animal as a whole, and involves the co-operation of several organs and of many groups of muscles. Partly initiated by an external stimulus or group of stimuli, it is also, seemingly, determined in part, in a greater degree than reflex action, by internal factors which cause uneasiness or distress, more or less marked, if they do not find their normal instinctive satisfaction. This point, however, may be more profitably discussed in connection with the conscious aspect of instinct. If, then, we say that reflex acts are local responses of the congenital type due to specialized stimuli, while instinctive activities are matters of more general behaviour, usually involving a larger measure of central (as opposed to local or ganglionic) co-ordination, and due to the more widely-spread effects of stimuli in which both external and internal factors co-operate, we shall probably get as near as is possible to the distinction of which we are in search. But it must be remembered that there are cases in which the distinction can hardly be maintained.
We are now in a position to define instinctive behaviour as comprising those complex groups of co-ordinated acts which are, on their first occurrence, independent of experience; which tend to the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the race; which are due to the co-operation of external and internal stimuli; which are similarly performed by all the members of the same more or less restricted group of animals; but which are subject to variation, and to subsequent modification under the guidance of experience.