We must now examine the cases in which a solidarity of instinct is found to exist between several individuals, so that, on the one hand, the action of each redounds to the common welfare, and, on the other, it becomes possible for a useful purpose to be achieved through the harmonious association of individual workers. This community of instinct exists also among the higher animals, but here it is harder to distinguish from associations originating through conscious will, inasmuch as speech supplies the means of a more perfect intercommunication of aim and plan. We shall, however, definitely recognise [129] this general effect of a universal instinct in the origin of speech and in the great political and social movements in the history of the world. Here we are concerned only with the simplest and most definite examples that can be found anywhere, and therefore we will deal in preference with the lower animals, among which, in the absence of voice, the means of communicating thought, mimicry, and physiognomy, are so imperfect that the harmony and interconnection of the individual actions cannot in its main points be ascribed to an understanding arrived at through speech. Huber observed that when a new comb was being constructed a number of the largest working-bees, that were full of honey, took no part in the ordinary business of the others, but remained perfectly aloof. Twenty-four hours afterwards small plates of wax had formed under their bellies. The bee drew these off with her hind-feet, masticated them, and made them into a band. The small plates of wax thus prepared were then glued to the roof of the hive one on the top of the other. When one of the bees of this kind had used up her plates of wax, another followed her and carried the same work forward in the same way. A thin rough vertical wall, half a line in thickness and fastened to the sides of the hive, was thus constructed. On this, one of the smaller working-bees whose belly was empty came, and after surveying the wall, made a flat half-oval excavation in the middle of one of its sides; she piled up the wax thus excavated round the edge of the excavation. After a short time she was relieved by another like herself, till more than twenty followed one another in this way. Meanwhile another bee began to make a similar hollow on the other side of the wall, but corresponding only with the rim of the excavation on this side. Presently another bee began a second hollow upon the same side, each bee being continually relieved by others. Other bees kept coming up and bringing under their bellies plates of wax, with which they heightened the edge of the small wall of wax. In this, new bees were constantly excavating the ground for more cells, while others proceeded by degrees to bring those already begun into a perfectly symmetrical shape, and at the same time continued building up the prismatic walls between them. Thus the bees worked on opposite sides of the wall of wax, always on the same plan and in the closest correspondence with those upon the other side, until eventually the cells on both sides were completed in all their wonderful regularity and harmony of arrangement, not merely as regards those standing side by side, but also as regards those which were upon the other side of their pyramidal base.
Let the reader consider how animals that are accustomed to confer together, by speech or otherwise, concerning designs which they may be pursuing in common, will wrangle with thousandfold diversity of opinion; let him reflect how often something has to be undone, destroyed, and done over again; how at one time too many hands come forward, and at another too few; what running to and fro there is before each has found his right place; how often too many, and again too few, present themselves for a relief gang; and how we find all this in the concerted works of men, who stand so far higher than bees in the scale of organisation. We see nothing of the kind among bees. A survey of their operations leaves rather the impression upon us as though an invisible master-builder had prearranged a scheme of action for the entire community, and had impressed it upon each individual member, as though each class of workers had learnt their appointed work by heart, knew their places and the numbers in which they should relieve each other, and were informed instantaneously by a secret signal of the moment when their action was wanted. This, however, is exactly the manner in which an instinct works; and as the intention of the entire community is instinctively present in the unconscious clairvoyance [131a] of each individual bee, so the possession of this common instinct impels each one of them to the discharge of her special duties when the right moment has arrived. It is only thus that the wonderful tranquillity and order which we observe could be attained. What we are to think concerning this common instinct must be reserved for explanation later on, but the possibility of its existence is already evident, inasmuch [131b] as each individual has an unconscious insight concerning the plan proposed to itself by the community, and also concerning the means immediately to be adopted through concerted action—of which, however, only the part requiring his own co-operation is present in the consciousness of each. Thus, for example, the larva of the bee itself spins the silky chamber in which it is to become a chrysalis, but other bees must close it with its lid of wax. The purpose of there being a chamber in which the larva can become a chrysalis must be present in the minds of each of these two parties to the transaction, but neither of them acts under the influence of conscious will, except in regard to his own particular department. I have already mentioned the fact that the larva, after its metamorphosis, must be freed from its cell by other bees, and have told how the working-bees in autumn kill the drones, so that they may not have to feed a number of useless mouths throughout the winter, and how they only spare them when they are wanted in order to fecundate a new queen. Furthermore, the working-bees build cells in which the eggs laid by the queen may come to maturity, and, as a general rule, make just as many chambers as the queen lays eggs; they make these, moreover, in the same order as that in which the queen lays her eggs, namely, first for the working-bees, then for the drones, and lastly for the queens. In the polity of the bees, the working and the sexual capacities, which were once united, are now personified in three distinct kinds of individual, and these combine with an inner, unconscious, spiritual union, so as to form a single body politic, as the organs of a living body combine to form the body itself.
In this chapter, therefore, we have arrived at the following conclusions:—
Instinct is not the result of conscious deliberation; [132] it is not a consequence of bodily organisation; it is not a mere result of a mechanism which lies in the organisation of the brain; it is not the operation of dead mechanism, glued on, as it were, to the soul, and foreign to its inmost essence; but it is the spontaneous action of the individual, springing from his most essential nature and character. The purpose to which any particular kind of instinctive action is subservient is not the purpose of a soul standing outside the individual and near akin to Providence—a purpose once for all thought out, and now become a matter of necessity to the individual, so that he can act in no other way, though it is engrafted into his nature from without, and not natural to it. The purpose of the instinct is in each individual case thought out and willed unconsciously by the individual, and afterwards the choice of means adapted to each particular case is arrived at unconsciously. A knowledge of the purpose is often absolutely unattainable [133] by conscious knowledge through sensual perception. Then does the peculiarity of the unconscious display itself in the clairvoyance of which consciousness perceives partly only a faint and dull, and partly, as in the case of man, a more or less definite echo by way of sentiment, whereas the instinctive action itself—the carrying out of the means necessary for the achievement of the unconscious purpose—falls always more clearly within consciousness, inasmuch as due performance of what is necessary would be otherwise impossible. Finally, the clairvoyance makes itself perceived in the concerted action of several individuals combining to carry out a common but unconscious purpose.
Up to this point we have encountered clairvoyance as a fact which we observe but cannot explain, and the reader may say that he prefers to take his stand here, and be content with regarding instinct simply as a matter of fact, the explanation of which is at present beyond our reach. Against this it must be urged, firstly, that clairvoyance is not confined to instinct, but is found also in man; secondly, that clairvoyance is by no means present in all instincts, and that therefore our experience shows us clairvoyance and instinct as two distinct things—clairvoyance being of great use in explaining instinct, but instinct serving nothing to explain clairvoyance; thirdly and lastly, that the clairvoyance of the individual will not continue to be so incomprehensible to us, but will be perfectly well explained in the further course of our investigation, while we must give up all hope of explaining instinct in any other way.
The conception we have thus arrived at enables us to regard instinct as the innermost kernel, so to speak, of every living being. That this is actually the case is shown by the instincts of self-preservation and of the continuation of the species which we observe throughout creation, and by the heroic self-abandonment with which the individual will sacrifice welfare, and even life, at the bidding of instinct. We see this when we think of the caterpillar, and how she repairs her cocoon until she yields to exhaustion; of the bird, and how she will lay herself to death; of the disquiet and grief displayed by all migratory animals if they are prevented from migrating. A captive cuckoo will always die at the approach of winter through despair at being unable to fly away; so will the vineyard snail if it is hindered of its winter sleep. The weakest mother will encounter an enemy far surpassing her in strength, and suffer death cheerfully for her offspring’s sake. Every year we see fresh cases of people who have been unfortunate going mad or committing suicide. Women who have survived the Cæsarian operation allow themselves so little to be deterred from further childbearing through fear of this frightful and generally fatal operation, that they will undergo it no less than three times. Can we suppose that what so closely resembles demoniacal possession can have come about through something engrafted on to the soul as a mechanism foreign to its inner nature, [135] or through conscious deliberation which adheres always to a bare egoism, and is utterly incapable of such self-sacrifice for the sake of offspring as is displayed by the procreative and maternal instincts?
We have now, finally, to consider how it arises that the instincts of any animal species are so similar within the limits of that species—a circumstance which has not a little contributed to the engrafted-mechanism theory. But it is plain that like causes will be followed by like effects; and this should afford sufficient explanation. The bodily mechanism, for example, of all the individuals of a species is alike; so again are their capabilities and the outcomes of their conscious intelligence—though this, indeed, is not the case with man, nor in some measure even with the highest animals; and it is through this want of uniformity that there is such a thing as individuality. The external conditions of all the individuals of a species are also tolerably similar, and when they differ essentially, the instincts are likewise different—a fact in support of which no examples are necessary. From like conditions of mind and body (and this includes like predispositions of brain and ganglia) and like exterior circumstances, like desires will follow as a necessary logical consequence. Again, from like desires and like inward and outward circumstances, a like choice of means—that is to say, like instincts—must ensue. These last two steps would not be conceded without restriction if the question were one involving conscious deliberation, but as these logical consequences are supposed to follow from the unconscious, which takes the right step unfailingly without vacillation or delay so long as the premises are similar, the ensuing desires and the instincts to adopt the means for their gratification will be similar also.
Thus the view which we have taken concerning instinct explains the very last point which it may be thought worth while to bring forward in support of the opinions of our opponents.
I will conclude this chapter with the words of Schelling: “Thoughtful minds will hold the phenomena of animal instinct to belong to the most important of all phenomena, and to be the true touchstone of a durable philosophy.”