INSTINCT

a word used in a vague and popular and also in a more exact scientific sense, in which it is defined as meaning those mental faculties which are for a specific end, but which do not nece arily imply conscious knowledge on the part of the creature who exercises them. Some would try to separate the biological and psychological aspects of instinct among animals, but it is in the connection of the two that the problem really consists. The term ‘habit’ is applied to dispositions and secondary automatic actions acquired after birth. Intelligence presupposes individual experience with conscious purpose; the activities of instinct are performed without previous experience and without conscious purpose other than the satisfaction of response to the immediate and appropriate stimulus. The instincts of animals popularly so-called are only partly instincts proper, and partly what they have acquired. Many instinctive actions, again, as due to imitation. The problem of instinct is closely connected with heredity. There is undoubtedly such a thing as racial preparation, and the capacity for certain actions is inherited. As animals rise in the scale their instincts become more and more a ociated with intelligence, until in the highest animals instinct tends to lapse and intelligence to predominate.