Darwin was chiefly concerned with instinct from the biological rather than from the psychological point of view. Indeed it must be confessed that, from the latter standpoint, his conception of instinct as a "mental faculty" which "impels" an animal to the performance of certain actions, scarcely affords a satisfactory basis for genetic treatment. To carry out the spirit of Darwin's teaching it is necessary to link more closely biological and psychological evolution. The first step towards this is to interpret the phenomena of instinctive behaviour in terms of stimulation and response. It may be well to take a particular case. Swimming on the part of a duckling is, from the biological point of view, a typical example of instinctive behaviour. Gently lower a recently hatched bird into water: coordinated movements of the limbs follow in rhythmical sequence. The behaviour is new to the individual though it is no doubt closely related to that of walking, which is no less instinctive. There is a group of stimuli afforded by the "presentation" which results from partial immersion: upon this there follows as a complex response an application of the functional activities in swimming; the sequence of adaptive application on the appropriate presentation is determined by racial preparation. We know, it is true, but little of the physiological details of what takes place in the central nervous system; but in broad outline the nature of the organic mechanism and the manner of its functioning may at least be provisionally conjectured in the present state of physiological knowledge. Similarly in the case of the pecking of newly-hatched chicks; there is a visual presentation, there is probably a cooperating group of stimuli from the alimentary tract in need of food, there is an adaptive application of the activities in a definite mode of behaviour. Like data are afforded in a great number of cases of instinctive procedure, sometimes occurring very early in life, not infrequently deferred until the organism is more fully developed, but all of them dependent upon racial preparation. No doubt there is some range of variation in the behaviour, just such variation as the theory of natural selection demands. But there can be no question that the higher animals inherit a bodily organisation and a nervous system, the functional working of which gives rise to those inherited modes of behaviour which are termed instinctive.
It is to be noted that the term "instinctive" is here employed in the adjectival form as a descriptive heading under which may be grouped many and various modes of behaviour due to racial preparation. We speak of these as inherited; but in strictness what is transmitted through heredity is the complex of anatomical and physiological conditions under which, in appropriate circumstances, the organism so behaves. So far the term "instinctive" has a restricted biological connotation in terms of behaviour. But the connecting link between biological evolution and psychological evolution is to be sought,--as Darwin fully realised,--in the phenomena of instinct, broadly considered. The term "instinctive" has also a psychological connotation. What is that connotation?
Let us take the case of the swimming duckling or the pecking chick, and fix our attention on the first instinctive performance. Grant that just as there is, strictly speaking, no inherited behaviour, but only the conditions which render such behaviour under appropriate circumstances possible; so too there is no inherited experience, but only the conditions which render such experience possible; then the cerebral conditions in both cases are the same. The biological behaviour-complex, including the total stimulation and the total response with the intervening or resultant processes in the sensorium, is accompanied by an experience-complex including the initial stimulation-consciousness and resulting response-consciousness. In the experience-complex are comprised data which in psychological analysis are grouped under the headings of cognition, affective tone and conation. But the complex is probably experienced as an unanalysed whole. If then we use the term "instinctive" so as to comprise all congenital modes of behaviour which contribute to experience, we are in a position to grasp the view that the net result in consciousness constitutes what we may term the primary tissue of experience. To the development of this experience each instinctive act contributes. The nature and manner of organisation of this primary tissue of experience are dependent on inherited biological aptitudes; but they are from the outset onwards subject to secondary development dependent on acquired aptitudes.
Biological values are supplemented by psychological values in terms of satisfaction or the reverse.
In our study of instinct we have to select some particular phase of animal behaviour and isolate it so far as is possible from the life of which it is a part. But the animal is a going concern, restlessly active in many ways.
Many instinctive performances, as Darwin pointed out ("Origin of Species"(6th edition), page 206.), are serial in their nature. But the whole of active life is a serial and coordinated business. The particular instinctive performance is only an episode in a life-history, and every mode of behaviour is more or less closely correlated with other modes.
