Revival: Instinct and Experience (1912)

C. Lloyd Morgan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351340236
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

In the summer of 1910 a symposium on the subject of Instinct and Intelligence was held in London at a joint meeting of the Aristotelian and British Psychological Societies and of the Mind association. Considerable interest in the discussion was shown both in the room in which we met and beyond its walls. The papers then taken as read, and subsequently published in the "British Journal of Psychology, " disclose not a little divergence in the sense in which the terms instinctive and intelligent are used, an underlying divergence in the principles on which the proffered interpretations are based, and indications, more or less clear, of yet deeper-seated differences of philosophical foundation.

Chapter I
Instinctive Behaviour and Experience

INSTINCT AND EXPERIENCE

I PROPOSE to approach the problems of experience through the avenue of biology. My aim is to treat the phenomena of conscious existence as a naturalist treats the phenomena of organic life. I shall therefore begin with instinctive behaviour and shall endeavour to give some account of the nature of the instinctive experience which, as I believe, accompanies it. In this way we shall get some idea of what I conceive to be the beginnings of experience in the individual organism.

A consideration of the criticisms to which such a method of treatment, and its results, have been subjected will lead to some qualification of the hypothesis at first barely outlined, and will open up further problems with regard to the nature and development of experience. We shall find as we proceed that the term instinctive is used by different writers with rather wide divergence of meaning. It will become evident that men of weight, like Dr. Titchener and Dr. Thorndike in America, M. Bergson in France, Dr. Driesch and Father Wasmann in Germany, Dr. Stout, Mr. McDougall, and Dr. C. S. Myers in England, employ the term with differing connotation and denotation. Minor differences are found among writers whose approach like my own is from the side of biology. Under these circumstances some attempt to correlate divergent opinions should be helpful to further progress. Such an attempt might be made by one who, having no particular view of his own to support, could undertake the task with wholly unprejudiced judgment. That in my case is impossible. I have already reached conclusions of my own. If, however, I can succeed in giving a fair and just account of the teaching of those from whom I differ, and can make clear the grounds of my dissent, the fact that I write as an advocate, rather than one who is fitted to be judge and arbiter, may perhaps conduce to that vitality of treatment which is one of the advantages of a conflict of views.

But as we follow up the relation of instinct to other modes and phases of the life of experience we shall find that wider and wider issues are brought into the field of our consideration. It is part of my aim to deal with these in the spirit of one who has not only an interpretation of instinct to formulate, but also a more comprehensive scientific doctrine to advocate—a doctrine of the relation of experience to the world as experienceable. For the further we go the more clearly shall we see that a thinker's conclusions with regard to the nature of instinct are intimately connected with his philosophical attitude towards large and far-reaching world-problems. I propose to discuss these problems from the point of view of one who comes to them from the scientific side, so far as the space at my command permits, and so far as such discussion is calculated to throw light on the nature and development of experience.

Under the stimulating influence of M. Bergson the more philosophical aspect of life-problems has recently come into special prominence. Through his powerful advocacy, through the teaching of Dr. Driesch, and more recently through the skilfully marshalled arguments of Mr. McDougall—to mention no other names—the pendulum of opinion has acquired new impetus in the vitalistic direction of its swing. My own position will, I trust, be made sufficiently clear in the sequel. I shall urge that there is a tendency to introduce into a scientific discussion of such problems concepts which I regard as nonscientific.

The aim of science, I conceive, is to develop a generalized interpretation of natural processes in all their relationships, including the conscious relationships which go to the synthetic formation of experience. Science does not, however, attempt to give any answer—not even the hint of an answer—to the further question:—What is the Source of the natural processes so interpreted? That I conceive to be a metaphysical question. It opens up issues which are intimately connected with Theology and with Religion. With such metaphysical problems I do not attempt to deal in this book. Without for one moment denying their vital human interest and their supreme importance, I wish af the outset to exclude them altogether from any place in a scientific interpretation of natural processes. My only concern with them will be an emphatic, and perhaps often repeated, denial of their right of entry into a scientific universe of discourse, as I define the term scientific. It may, of course, be said that, by doing this, one leaves the scheme of science quite unexplained. Not only the mode of origin of the world in which we live, but its final end and purpose are thus wholly disregarded. Exactly so! These are just the questions which should be left over for metaphysical treatment. Physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, mineralogy-all the sciences which deal with the inorganic world—have long ago recognized this. Some day biology and psychology will do so with equal candour and to their lasting profit.

Some years ago¹ I had under observation two young moorhens or waterhens which I had hatched in an incubator and watched from day to day, almost from hour to hour, with some care. One of these, about nine weeks old, was swimming in a pool at the bend of a stream in Yorkshire. A vigorous rough-haired puppy, highly charged with canine vitality, ran down from the neighbouring farm, barking and gambolling; and from the bank he made an awkward feint towards the young bird. In a moment the moorhen dived, disappeared from view, and soon partially reappeared, his head just peeping above the water beneath the overhanging bank. Now this was the first time the bird had dived. I had repeatedly endeavoured to elicit this characteristic piece of behaviour, but had failed. My friend Mr. F. A. Knight tells me that he has seen a moor-chick, not more than a day old, dive under a log of wood when suddenly disturbed. I have seen them dive nearly as early in life. Under unnatural conditions, however, in a large bath, and under natural conditions in the Yorkshire stream, do what I would in my efforts to coax or to frighten the young bird, I had never been able to make him dive. But now at last that blundering puppy succeeded, where I had so often failed. And when this characteristic piece of behaviour came upon my little friend—came upon him suddenly and without warning—his dive was absolutely true to type.

I have elsewhere¹ advocated the acceptance of a definition of instinctive behaviour as that which is, on its first occurrence, independent of prior experience; which tends to the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the race; which is similarly performed by all the members of the same more or less restricted group of animals; and which may be subject to subsequent modification under the guidance of experience, Such behaviour is, I conceive, a more or less complex organic or biological response to a more or less complex group of stimuli of external and internal origin, and it is, as such, wholly dependent on how the organism, and especially the nervous system and brain-centres have been built through heredity, under that mode of racial preparation which we call biological evolution.

How far does the behaviour of the moorhen, when it dives for the first time in its life, conform to this definition? I conceive that it conforms all along the line so long as, but only so long as, we restrict our attention to its specific nature as dive. Qua dive, it is independent of prior diving experience, for there has been no such experience. Of course it may be said that diving involves swimming and that of swimming the moorhen has had abundant experience during two months of active life. That is surely true enough. But to dive is not only to swim, but to swim with a difference. It is adapted to the peculiar circumstances of complete immersion. I do not think that any careful observer will deny that diving is a differentiated form of swimming and that it has specific characters which make it something other than merely swimming under water. The whole poise and set of the body, the position of the head and outstretched neck, the impelling strokes of the legs, are specially adapted to a relatively new mode of progression. There must be a correlated modification of the processes of respiration. The question is whether these and other specific differentiations of behaviour are instinctive in the sense that they are as such independent of prior experience. That they are wholly independent of all previous experience I do not assert. If that were the case it is difficult to understand how they could possibly be incorporated with, and synthetically assimilated to, the experience already gained. But that they provide new factors to be so incorporated and assimilated seems to me to be a conclusion forced upon us by the facts of the case. The particular and specific form of behaviour exhibited by the moorhen on the occasion of its first dive is, I believe, dependent as such on how the nervous system has been built up under that mode of racial preparation which we call biological evolution. If in further criticism of the view I wish to make clear, it be urged that though perhaps the specific form of the scare-begotten dive-situation is due to the hereditary make-up of the nerve-centres, it is also partly dependent (e.g. in its relation to swimming) on how the nerve-centres have been moulded and modified under previous experience—that is to say in psychological terms, partly dependent on intelligent guidance—I venture to remind my critic that we are endeavouring to disentangle the factors of behaviour; that all I urge is that an instinctive factor, new to experience, is introduced. I am ready to admit, nay more I am prepared to contend, that, just in so far as the behaviour is dependent on previous experience, we have also the presence of the intelligent factor. In a moorhen two months old instinct and intelligence co-operate. None the less the instinctive and intelligent factors are distinguishable in analysis.

What are we to understand by intelligent guidance? At a later stage of our enquiry I shall endeavour to defend the hypotheses that intelligent guidance is the function of the cerebral cortex with its distinguishing property of consciousness; that the co-ordination involved in instinctive behaviour, and in the distribution of physiological impulses to the viscera and vascular system, is the primary function of the lower brain-centres; that, in instinctive behaviour as such, consciousness correlated with processes in the cerebral cortex, is so to speak, a mere spectator of organic and biological occurrences at present beyond its control; but that, as spectator, it receives information of these occurrences through the nerve-channels of connexion between the lower and the higher parts of the brain. This, however, is only an outline sketch of a programme for further discussion. At present we are only concerned with this question: What gives to experience its guiding value? Dr. Stout has enabled us to give the answer in one word. Experience has guiding value in virtue of the meaning it embodies. Why does the burnt child shun fire? Because the sight of fire has meaning. Why does the chick that has but once or twice taken a ladybird into its bill no longer peck at these insects notwithstanding its instinctive tendency to peck at any small object within reach? Because the appearance of the ladybird carries meaning. Why does your dog beg when you say "biscuit"? Because the sound has meaning. One is obliged, in order to avoid pedantry, to say that the sight or sound or other presentation to sense carries or conveys or has meaning. It would be more correct to say that the total experience in any one of these situations is meaningful. Any given experience in any given moment is a synthetic product or, from a different point of view, a phase in a continuous synthetic process. It is essential to bear in mind that, no matter how far and in what detail we may analyse such a synthetic phase of naively developing experience into its constituents, within the experience as given and felt, or as Professor Alexander would say enjoyed, these constituents merge their individuality to form an indissoluble whole.

We may here distinguish between primary and secondary meaning.¹ Suppose there be a bit of developing experience occurring as such for the first time—our moorhen's dive for example—which gives a sequence a, b, c, d. Since the consciousness of the first part of the sequence has not faded away when the latter part comes, the experience at the phase d is not one of d only but of d as qualified by the net results of the precedent a, b, c. This qualification of d by what has gone before is the primary meaning which d "carries"; it is that which makes d meaningful through primary retention. There is here no revival of what has faded out of consciousness and has to be reinstated. Thus primary experience—that of the dive to wit—swells with meaning as it grows, as it develops, as it proceeds on its course. But now suppose the completed series a, b, c, d, e, f, has been previously experienced; then on a subsequent occasion when d is reached it is not only qualified by the precedent a, b, c, of this occasion, but also by a revival or pre-perception of the e, f, which formed part of the series on a previous occasion. This pre-perception, this expectation begotten of previous experience, is the secondary meaning which d then carries. Behaviour in part determined by secondary meaning I term intelligent. If the situation within which the sound "biscuit," in Its appropriate setting, occurs had not developed on former occasions in a certain routine, your dog would have no expectation or pre-perception of what would follow on this occasion—the sound would carry no secondary meaning. We must remember that in the early stages of the genesis of experience, what is expected is in large measure the revived experience of behaving in certain ways within the previous routine. It must be remembered too that meaning—(I shall use this term in reference to secondary meaning)—is limited to the qualifying revival of part of the previous routine—re-presented in experience but not again presented to experience through the channels of sense as the situation actually develops.

Bearing this in mind let us return to our puppy and moorhen. I will first describe in physiological terms what I conceive to take place; and I shall, for the moment, disregard the fact that the bird has a cerebral cortex. He is therefore, I assume, an unconscious automaton of the purely reflex order, until we take his higher brain-centres into consideration. Groups of effective stimuli fall upon the receptor end-organs of eye and ear. These Initiate physiological impulses which are transmitted by the optic and auditory nerves, and throw the lower brain-centres into functional activity. From these centres two sets of impulses proceed outwards along efferent nerves. The first set calls into play the muscles concerned in diving. The second set is distributed to the viscera—the vascular system, alimentary system, respiratory system. When I took it out of the water the bird was panting with open beak, its heart-beat was strong and quick. Although I did not observe defecation in this case, I have frequently observed its occurrence in similar cases. It is often noticeable when young birds are first put into water. Now from the organs concerned in swimming and diving and from the heart, lungs, and other viscera, afferent impulses proceed inwards to the lower brain-centres and either initiate new processes therein or modify those which are already taking place.

Thus there are three sets of afferent or in-going impulses. The first set of afferent impulses (a) is due to some specific mode of sensory contact with the environment. This through its action on the lower brain-centres gives rise to the two sets of afferent impulses (1) to the organs of behaviour, (2) to the visceral organs. And then from these organs come the other two sets of afferent impulses (b) from limbs concerned in behaviour and (c) from heart, lungs, etc. Is this scheme already somewhat complex? It is reduced to a simplicity which is probably absurdly inadequate to the facts. If we regard the dive as a whole we have to remember that the stimuli to eye and ear merely start the train of events which breaks in upon a foregoing train of events. Directly the bird is under water there are new stimuli due to complete immersion. It is probable that the mere fact of total immersion is the condition (or a condition) of the differentiated mode of swimming under water. There is a new influence of the environment as the moorhen approaches the bank. Is it going too far to say that, throughout the continuous dive, the total stimulation of the lower brain-centres is constantly varying? Is it unreasonable to suggest that each phase of the dive is definitely correlated with the progressively varying group of processes in the lower brain -centres?

Now whether a decerebrate bird-—one whose cerebral hemispheres had been removed or thrown out of action—would dive as did my moorhen in the Yorkshire stream, I- cannot say. We have some data for the discussion of such a question; and these will be considered in the sequel. As a matter of fact, however, in my moorhen, the higher brain-centres and cortex were intact. And I think it in the highest degree unlikely that the processes occurring in its cerebral hemispheres were without influence on its behaviour. This indeed is but to repeat in other words what I have said above—that in such behaviour instinct and intelligence co-operate; for the cortex is the organ of intelligence; meaning is correlated with cortical process. Let us then restore to their proper place the cerebral cortex, the presence of which we have so far disregarded. The cortex is connected with the lower nerve-centres. From them, or through them, it can receive physiological impulses; to them it can transmit other controlling impulses. When groups of visual and auditory stimuli excite the receptor end-organs of eye and ear, not only are the lower brain-centres thrown into activity but, through them, certain regions of the cortex are excited. In and through this excitement the moorhen sees and hears the puppy. When afferent impulses reach the brain from the organs concerned in behaviour, not only is the activity of the lower brain-centres qualified by their effects, but through them the cerebral cortex is further excited. In and through this excitement the moorhen feels its own behaviour; has the experience of swimming and diving. When afferent impulses reach the brain from the heart, lungs, and other viscera, from many parts of t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• CHAPTER I INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR AND EXPERIENCE
• CHAPTER II THE RELATION OF INSTINCT TO EXPERIENCE
• CHAPTER III REFLEX ACTION AND INSTINCT
• CHAPTER IV HEREDITARY DISPOSITIONS AND INNATE MENTAL TENDENCIES
• CHAPTER V THE GROUND OF EXPERIENCE
• CHAPTER VI NATURAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE
• CHAPTER VII THE PHILOSOPHY OF INSTINCT
• CHAPTER VIII FINALISM AND MECHANISM: BODY AND MIND
• INDEX