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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > I > Instinct


INSTINCT

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DEFINITIONS

In both popular and scientific literature the term instinct has been given such
a variety of meanings that it is not possible to frame for it an adequate
definition which would meet with general acceptance. The term usually includes
the idea of a purposive adaptation of an action or series of actions in an
organized being, not governed by consciousness of the end to be attained. The
difficulty is encountered when we attempt to add to this generic concept
specific notes which shall differentiate it from reflex activities on the one
hand and from intelligent activities on the other. Owing to the limitation of
our knowledge of the processes involved, it may not always be possible to
determine whether a given action should be regarded as reflex or instinctive,
but this should not prevent us from drawing, on theoretical grounds, a clear
line of demarcation between these two modes of activity. The reflex is
essentially a physiological process. The reflex arc is an established neural
mechanism which secures a definite and immediate response to a given physical
stimulus. The individual may be conscious of the stimulus or of the response or
of both, but consciousness does not in any case enter into the reflex as an
essential factor. Instincts, in contradistinction to reflexes, are comparatively
complex. Some writers are so impressed with this characteristic of instinct that
they are disposed to agree with Herbert Spencer in defining it as an organized
series of reflexes, but this definition fails to take into account the fact that
consciousness forms an essential link in all instinctive activities. It has been
suggested as a distinctive characteristic of instinct that it arises from
perception, whereas the Source of a reflex is never higher than a sensation.
Baldwin includes under instinct only reactions of a sensory-motor type. From a
neurological point of view, in mammals at least, instinct always involves the
cerebral cortex, the seat of consciousness, while the reflex is confined to the
lower nerve centres. An obvious difference between reflexes and instincts is to
be found in the fact that in the reflex the response to the stimulus is
immediate, whereas the culmination of the instinctive activity, in which its
purposive character appears, may be delayed for a considerable time.



The chief difficulties in defining instinct are encountered in differentiating
instinctive from intelligent activities. If the mode of origin of instinct and
habit be left out of account, the two processes will be seen to resemble each
other so closely that it is well-nigh impossible to draw any clear line of
distinction between them. This circumstance has led to the popular conception of
instinct as race habit, a view of the subject which finds support in so eminent
an authority as Wilhelm Wundt; but this definition implies a theory of origin
for instinct which is not universally accepted. Again, the Schoolmen and many
competent observers, among whom E. Wasmann, S.J., is prominent, find the
characteristic difference between instinctive and intelligent activities in the
fact that one is governed exclusively by sensation, or by sensory associative
processes, while the other is governed by intellect and free will. They
accordingly attribute all the conscious activities of the animal to instinct,
since, as they claim, none of these activities can be traced to intellect in the
strict sense of the word. St. Thomas nowhere treats in detail of animal
instinct, but his position on the subject is rendered none the less clear from a
great many passages in the "Summa Theologica". He is in full agreement with the
best modern authorities in laying chief emphasis on the absence of consciousness
of the end as the essential characteristic of instinct. He says (op. cit., I-II,
Q. xi, a. 2, C.): "Although beings devoid of consciousness (coqnitio) attain
their end, nevertheless they do not attain a fruition of their end, as beings do
who are endowed with consciousness. Consciousness of one's end, however, is of
two kinds, perfect and imperfect. Perfect consciousness is that by which one is
conscious not only of the end, and that it is good, but also of the general
nature of purpose and goodness. This kind of consciousness is peculiar to
rational natures. Imperfect consciousness is that by which a being knows the
purpose and goodness in particular, and this kind of consciousness is found in
brute animals, which are not governed by free will but are moved by natural
instinct towards those things which they apprehend. Thus the rational creature
attains complete enjoyment (fruitio); the brute attains imperfect enjoyment, and
other creatures do not attain enjoyment at all." Wasmann's concept of instinct
is in strict agreement with that of St. Thomas, while it is more explicit. He
divides the instinctive activities of animals into two groups: "Instinctive
actions in the strict, and instinctive actions in the wider acceptation of the
term. As instances of the former class we have to regard those which immediately
spring from the inherited dispositions of the powers of sensile cognition and
appetite; and as instances of the latter those which indeed proceed from the
same inherited dispositions but through the medium of sense experience."
(Instinct and Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom, p. 35.)

There is a growing tendency in biology and comparative psychology to restrict
the term instinct to inherited purposive adaptations. Many writers add to this
two other characteristics: they insist that an instinct must be definitely fixed
or rigid in character, and that it must be common to a large group of
individuals. Baldwin regards instinct as "a definitely biological, not a
psychological conception" (Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology). He adds
that "no adequate psychological definition of instinct is possible, since the
psychological state involved is exhausted by the terms sensation (and also
perception), instinct-feeling, and impulse." (Ibid.) The divergent views
entertained by writers on the subject concerning the nature and origin of
instinct naturally find expression in the currently accepted definitions of the
term, a few of which are here appended : —

 * "Instinct, natural inward impulse; unconscious, involuntary or unreasoning
   prompting to any mode of action, whether bodily or mental. instinct, in its
   more technical use, denotes any inherited tendency to perform a specific
   action in a specific way when the appropriate situation occurs; furthermore,
   an instinct is characteristic of a group or race of related animals." (New
   International Dictionary.)
 * "Instinct, a special innate propensity, in any organized being, but more
   especially in the lower animals, producing effects which appear to be those
   of reason and knowledge, but which transcend the general intelligence or
   experience of the creature; the sagacity of the brute." (Century Dictionary.)
 * "Instinct, an inherited reaction of the sensory-motor type, relatively
   complex and markedly adaptive in character, and common to a group of
   individuals." (Baldwin, "Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology ".)
 * "Instinct is the hereditary, suitable (adaptive) disposition of the powers of
   sensitive cognition and appetite in the animal." (Wasmann, op. cit., 36.)
 * "Habit differs from instinct, not in its nature, but in its origin; the last
   being natural, the first acquired." (Reid.)
 * "Instinct is a purposive action without consciousness of the purpose." (E.
   von Hartmann, "Philosophy of the Unconscious", tr. Coupland.)
 * "Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported the element of
   consciousness. The term is therefore a generic one, comprising all those
   faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious and adaptive action,
   antecedent to individual experience, without necessary knowledge of the
   relation to individual experience, without necessary knowledge of the
   relation between means employed and ends attained, but similarly performed
   under similar and frequently recurring circumstances by all the individuals
   of the same species." (Romanes, "Animal Intelligence", New York, 1892, p.
   17.)
 * "Movements which originally followed upon simple or compound voluntary acts,
   but which have become wholly or partially mechanized in the course of
   individual life and of generic evolution, we term instinctive actions."
   (Wundt, "Human and Animal Psychology", London, 1894, p. 388.)




ORIGIN

A great many theories have been advanced to account for the origin of instinct.
These theories may be grouped under three heads: (a) reflex theories, (b)
theories of lapsed intelligence, and (c) the theory of organic selection.

The name of Charles Darwin has been prominently associated with the reflex
theory, sometimes called the theory of natural selection. This assumes that
instincts, like anatomical structures, tend to vary from the specific type, and
these variations, when advantageous to the species, are gradually accumulated
though natural selection. In his chapter on instinct in the "Origin of Species",
Darwin says: "It will be universally admitted that instincts are as important as
corporal structures for the welfare of each species under its present conditions
of life. Under changed conditions of life, it is at least possible that slight
modifications of instinct might be profitable to a species; and if it can be
shown that instincts do vary ever so little, then I can see no difficulty in
natural selection preserving and continually accumulating variations of instinct
to any extent that was profitable. It is thus, as I believe, that all the most
complex and wonderful instincts have originated." (Op. cit., New York, 1892,
vol. I, p. 321.) The difficulty with this theory is that it fails to account for
the survival of the early beginnings of an instinct before it is of utility. It
has also been urged against it that it does not account for the co-ordination of
the muscular groups which are frequently involved in instinct. Similar
objections, of course, have been urged against natural selection as the origin
of many complex anatomical structures. The adaptive character, in the one case
as in the other, points to the operation of an intelligence that altogether
transcends the scope of the mental powers of the creatures in question.

The second theory, that of lapsed intelligence, has assumed many forms, and has
found many defenders among comparative psychologists and biologists during the
last half century. Among the best-known authors espousing this theory may be
mentioned Wundt, Eimer, and Cope. The two main difficulties in the way of the
acceptance of this theory are, first, the high grade of intelligence demanded at
very low levels of animal life, and second, it assumes the inheritance of
acquired characteristics. Wundt rejects intelligence in the strict acceptation
of the term as the source of animal instinct. His position is best stated in his
own words: "We may reject at once as wholly untenable the hypothesis which
derives animal instinct from an intelligence which, though not identical with
that of man, is still, so to speak, of equal rank with it. At the same time we
must admit that the adherents of an intellectual theory in a more general sense
are right in ascribing a large number of the manifestations of mental life in
animals not, indeed, to intelligence, as the intellectualists sensu stricto do,
but to individual experiences, the mechanism of which can only be explained in
terms of association." (Op. cit., p. 389.) After dealing with another phase of
this subject, he continues: "Only two hypotheses remain, therefore, as really
arguable. One of them makes instinctive action a mechanized intelligent action,
which can be in whole or in part reduced to the level of the reflex; the other
makes instinct a matter of inherited habit, gradually acquired and modified
under the influence of the external environment in the course of numberless
generations. There is obviously no necessary antagonism between these two views.
Instincts may be actions originally conscious, but now become mechanical, and
they may be inherited habits." (Ibid., p. 393.) After discussing human instincts
and their relation to animal instincts, Wundt concludes: "External conditions of
life and voluntary reactions upon them, then, are the two factors operative in
the evolution of instinct. But they operate in different degrees. The general
development of mentality is always tending to modify instinct in some way or
another. And so it comes about that of the two associated principles the first,
— adaptation to environment, — predominates at the lower stages of life; the
second, — voluntary activity, — at the higher. This is the great difference
between the instincts of man and those of the animals. Human instincts are
habits, acquired or inherited from previous generations; animal instincts are
purposive adaptations of voluntary action to the conditions of life. And a
second difference follows from the first: that the vast majority of human
instincts are acquired: while animals . . . are restricted to connate instincts,
with a very limited range of variation." (Ibid., 409.)

Romanes seeks to solve the problem of the origin of instinct by combining these
two theories, accounting for the more rigid instincts of animals on the basis of
natural selection and for the more plastic instincts by the inheritance of
mechanized habits. He calls the former class of instincts primary and the latter
secondary. More recently, the theory of organic selection has been advanced.
According to this theory purposive adaptations of all kinds, whether intelligent
or organic, are called upon to supplement incomplete endowment, and thus to keep
the species alive until variations are secured sufficient to make the instinct
relatively independent.

It is evident from the definitions and theories given above that several
distinct things are included under the term instinct. This finds expression in
the division of instincts into primary and secondary suggested by Romanes, and
into connate and acquired instincts (Wundt). Darwin emphasized the same fact
when he claimed that many instincts may have arisen from habit, and then adds:
"but it would be a serious error to suppose that the greater number of instincts
have been acquired by habit in one generation and then transmitted by
inheritance to succeeding generations. It can be clearly shown that the most
wonderful instincts with which we are acquainted, namely, those of the hive-bee
and of many ants, could not possibly have been acquired by habit." (Op. cit.,
vol. I, 321.) Formerly, instincts interested naturalists chiefly because they
were regarded as so many illustrations of the intelligence of the Creator, and,
indeed, where it is a question of "primary", or "inherited", instincts — or
instincts in "the strict sense of the term", as Wasmann designates them — the
problem of origin is similar to that of the origin of anatomical
characteristics. Evidently we shall have to account for such elaborate instincts
as that which determines the conduct of the caterpillar or the emperor moth in
building its cocoon along the same lines which we adopt in accounting for the
origin of complicated anatomical structures. The intelligence displayed far
transcends that which could possibly have been possessed by such lowly
creatures. The "secondary", or "acquired", instincts have a theoretical interest
of an entirely different character, arising out of the problems of the nature of
animal intelligence and the origin of man. Monists, and in general all those who
accept the brute origin of man, seek to obliterate the essential difference
between man and the animal; hence they ascribe to the animal an intelligence
which differs only in degree from that possessed by man. While at first sight
this would seem to lift the animal up to the plane of human life, what it does
in reality is to lower man to the plane of brute life.

It may easily be demonstrated that many of the instincts in animals are capable
of modification in the course of individual experience. Acts that are determined
by a new element in the environment may be frequently repeated by a large number
of the species; this repetition soon begets a habit which, to all intents and
purposes, is identical with instinct. Such mechanized habits are, as we have
seen, classified by some observers as instincts, and if such a habit be
inherited, as some claim it may be, then no one would refuse to it the name of
instinct. The real importance attaching to this problem arises from the form of
consciousness that is operative in building up such habits, or secondary
instincts. Aristotle and the Schoolmen attributed these purposive adjustments to
the appetitus sensitivus. They found no need of calling into play any higher
faculty than sensory perceptions of particular objects and the recognition of
their desirability or the reverse. This view is developed by Wasmann. It should
be observed, however, that the term instincts as used by the Scholastics and by
Wasmann refers not only to the neural mechanism or habit in the animal, but to
the sensory powers which enable the animal to adjust its spontaneous activities
to its surroundings. The term "was not taken merely as a constituent part of the
sensitive power of cognition and appetite but as the adaptive, natural
disposition of animal sensation, which constitutes the vital principle that
governs the spontaneous actions of the animal. . . . For apart from and beyond
inherited, instinctive knowledge, scholastic philosophy ascribed to the animal a
sensile memory and a power of perfecting inborn instincts though sense
experience; it acknowledges in the animal not only complete hereditary talents
for certain activities, but to a certain degree talent and ability acquired by
sense experience and by practice." (Wasmann, op. cit., 138-39.) Wundt, as we
have seen, denies to the animal intelligence of the same order as that possessed
by man. A great deal of confusion has been imported into this subject by a loose
and unjustifiable use of the terms reason and intelligence. To the superficial
observer, of course, the power of sensory perception and association possessed
by the animal resembles intelligence, but the terms have widely different
signification. Intelligence in its lowest degree always implies as an essential
characteristic the power of abstraction and generalization on which freedom of
election rests, and, until it is shown that animals possess such a power, it is
unjustifiable to attribute such intelligence to them as the school of
naturalists do who approach the subject with the foregone conclusion that human
intelligence originated from that of the brute, and differs only from it in
degree.




HUMAN INSTINCTS

The question of the nature of human instincts and the treatment which they
should receive is involved in many practical issues of the utmost consequence in
the field of education. As we have seen above, some writers speak of acquired
instincts, meaning thereby highly developed or mechanized habits; but it will be
more convenient here to confine the use of the term to instincts in the proper
sense of the word, that is, to innate or inherited tendencies, and to speak of
modes of activity established in individual life through repetition as habits.
The most striking characteristic of human instincts as contrasted with instincts
in the brute is plasticity. It is, in fact, this characteristic of human
instinct that renders education both possible and necessary. Among the higher
animals many instincts are relatively plastic, that is, they are modified by the
individual experience of the animal. This renders it possible to train animals
to act in ways that are not provided for by definitely organized tendencies. The
plasticity of the animal's instincts is in some direct proportion to the
development of the brain and of the power of sense perception and sensory
association, but when we turn to man we find that his intelligence, which
asserts itself at a very early date in infancy, begins to modify all instinctive
activities as soon as they appear, a fact which renders it difficult to observe
unmodified instincts in adult life. There are, therefore, two things to be taken
into account: the plasticity of the instinct and the power of intellect and free
will that is brought to bear in modifying it. In both of these respects there is
a striking contrast observable between man and the animal.

It should be noted here as of special importance to the discussion that human
instincts do not all make their appearance at birth. It is true that instinct
causes the newly born babe to seek its mother's breast and to perform sundry
other necessary functions, but many of the instincts make their appearance for
the first time in the appropriate phase of neural and mental development. Again,
while the appearance of the instinct is relatively late in the developmental
series, it frequently, as in the case of coquetry and maternity, antedates by
some years the adult function to which it refers. This renders the instincts
much more plastic, or, in other words, much more amenable to the control of
educative agencies than they would be if they appeared for the first time amid
the stress of the fully developed emotions and passions to which they refer.
This antedating of the function may be regarded as an indication of the
vestigial character of the instincts in question. The work in the field of
genetic psychology and of child study during the past few decades has revealed
the presence and the important functions of many hitherto neglected instincts in
the life of the child. These instincts cannot be neglected or they will run wild
and produce their crop of undesirable results; they cannot be suppressed
indiscriminately, because they are the native roots on which all habits that are
of enduring strength in human life are grafted. On the other hand, many
instincts are highly undesirable; their full development would, in fact, mean
the production of criminals. For explanation of these instincts we are referred
by many to the savage state from which civilized man has gradually emerged. "In
the case of mankind, the self-assertion, the unscrupulous seizing upon all that
can be grasped, the tenacious holding of all that can be kept, which constitute
the essence of the struggle for existence, have answered. For his successful
progress through the savage state, man has been largely indebted to those
qualities which he shares with the ape and tiger. . . . But, in proportion as
men have passed from anarchy to social organization, and in proportion as
civilization has grown in worth, these deeply ingrained serviceable qualities
have become defects. . . . In fact, civilized man brands all these ape and tiger
promptings with the name of sins; he punishes many of the acts which flow from
them as crimes; and, in extreme cases, he does his best to put an end to the
survival of the fittest of former days by axe and rope." (Huxley, "Evolution and
Ethics", New York, 1894, pp. 51-52.) Clearly, then, some instincts must be
suppressed and others must be reinforced. It is the business of education to
guide the native impulses of the child into proper channels and to build upon
them the habits of civilized life. So far there is practical agreement in the
field, but what standard shall be employed in determining which instincts shall
be inhibited and which reinforced, and what methods shall be employed in
directing the tide of instinctive activity? In these questions there is anything
but agreement.

Many of those educators who believe in the brute origin of man assume that the
standard of selection here must be the same as that in the animal kingdom,
namely, the conscious activities of each individual. They would have the child
with his meagre endowment of intellect determine for himself, "experimentally",
which instincts to suppress and which to cultivate. This thought is embodied in
the "culture epoch" theory, which finds so much favour with many modern
educators. This theory is founded on the assumption that the child recapitulates
in the unfolding of his conscious life the history of the race; and it further
assumes that the proper mode of treatment is to lead each phase of this
recapitulation to function when it appears in the child's development. The child
is to determine by his own experience the unsatisfactory character of the
earlier phase, and thus be led to recognize the desirability of moving on to the
later and higher phase. In these respects the Christian Church has always
maintained a policy exactly the opposite of the one here outlined. She maintains
that, whatever may be the nature of the child's instincts, he must be led from
the beginning to function only on the highest plane attained by the adult
whether through reason or Revelation. She further maintains that the standard of
selection is not the choice of the individual child, but the standard of truth
and goodness which has been revealed to man and has been accepted by the wisdom
of the race. She has always maintained the principle of authority both in
matters of doctrine and of conduct, as opposed to private judgment and
individual choice, which, in her eyes, lead to anarchy.

Moreover, the Church's position in this matter is in entire agreement with the
secure findings of biology and psychology. The doctrine of recapitulation on
which the culture epoch theory rests is a doctrine of embryology where it is
held that ontogeny is a recapitulation of phylogeny, i.e., that the individual
embryo recapitulates in its development the successive stages in the development
of the race; but it should be observed that this doctrine is purely anatomical.
Many biologists believe that the eye in race history was made by seeing and the
lung by breathing; but no biologist would maintain for a moment that the eye in
embryonic development was made by seeing and the lung by breathing. In fact,
high levels of animal life are never reached except in those cases where the
offspring is carried forward without functioning to the adult plane by the
parent. And it may be rightly argued from analogy that, even if it be granted
that the child's mental life is a recapitulation of the race life, the only way
of bringing him up to the adult plane is through society's functioning for him,
though its educative agencies, until he reaches adult stature. The culture epoch
theory, which leads the child to function in each successive "culture epoch",
would, therefore, not only retard his proper development, but it would
inevitably initiate a violent retrogression.




SOURCES

General works on evolution, psychology, and comparative psychology; cf. in
particular MORGAN, Some Definitions of Instinct in Natural Science (London, May,
1895); IDEM, Habit and Instinct (London, 1896); IDEM, Animal Behaviour (London,
1900); IDEM, Introduction to Comparative Psychology (London, 1894); ROMANES,
Animal Intelligence (New York, 1892); IDEM, Mental Evolution in Animals (New
York, 1891); IDEM, Darwin and After Darwin, I (Chicago, 1896); MIVART, Lessons
from Nature (London, 1879); IDEM, Origin of Human Reason (London, 1899);
WASMANN, Instinct and Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom (St. Louis, 1903);
LUBBOCK, Ants, Bees and Wasps (New York, 1893); GROOS, Play of Animals (New
York, 1898); IDEM, Play of Man (New York, 1901); BALDWIN in Science of 20 March
and 10 April (1896); IDEM, Story of the Mind (New York, 1898); IDEM in Dict. of
Philos. and Psychol. (New York, 1901), s.v. Instinct and Organic Selection;
LICATA, Fisiologia dell' istinto (Naples, 1879); MASCI, Le teorie sulla
formazione naturale dell' istinto (Naples, 1893).


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Shields, T. (1910). Instinct. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08050b.htm

MLA citation. Shields, Thomas. "Instinct." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8.
New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08050b.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Douglas J. Potter.
Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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