5. There is every reason to think, moreover, that the tendency to imitate is itself instinctive. Young animals, notably the monkey and the child, fall spontaneously to imitating when they reach a certain age. Imitation shows itself to be instinct- ive in the case of the mocking bird, the parrot, etc. Furthermore, the mechanism of this func- tion of imitation is now very well known. The principle of psychology recognised above under the phrase Kinaesthetic Equivalents, teaches us that the idea of a movement, coming into the mind through sight or some other sense, stirs up the proper apparatus to bring about the same move- ment in the observer. This we see in the com- mon tendency of an audience to repeat the ges- THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 29 tures of a speaker, and in many similar cases. When this principle is extended to include all sorts of experiences besides those of movement, we have what is generally called Imitation. More- over, every time that by action the child imitates, he perceives his own imitation, and this again acts as a "copy" or model for another repetition of the act, and so on. This method of keeping him- self going gives the young animal or child con- stant practice, and renders him more and more efficient in the acts necessary to his life.
6. It is evident what great profit accrues from this arrangement whereby a general instinct like imitation takes the place of a number of spe- cial instincts, or supplements them. It gives a measure of plasticity to the creature. He can now respond suitably to changes in the environ- ment in which he lives. The special instincts, on the contrary, are for the most part so fixed that the animal must act just as they require him to in this or that circumstance; but as soon as his in- stinct takes on the form of imitation, the result- ing action tends to conform itself to the model actions of the other creatures which set "copies " before him.
These more or less new results due to recent research in the province of Instinct have had direct bearing upon theories of the origin of in- stinct and of its place in animal life.
Theories of Instinct. — Apart from the older view which saw in animal instinct simply a mat- ter of original created endowment, whereby each animal was made once for all " after his kind," and according to which there is no further reason that the instincts are what they are than that they were made so; apart from this " special crea- 30 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
tion " view, two different ideas have had currency, both based upon the theory of evolution. Each of these views assumes that the instincts have been developed from more simple animal actions by a gradual process; but they differ as to the ele- ments originally entering into the actions which afterward became instinctive.
i. First, there is what is called the Reflex Theory. This holds that instincts are reflex ac- tions, like the closing of the eye when an object threatens to enter it, only much more complex. They are due to the compounding and adding to- gether of simple reflexes, in greater and greater number, and with increasing efficiency. This theory attempts to account for instinct entirely in terms of nervous action. It goes with that view of evolution which holds that the nervous system has had its growth from generation to gen- eration by the continued reflex adjustments of the organism to its environment, whereby more and more delicate adaptations to the external world were secured. In this way, say the advocates of this theory, we may account for the fact that the animal has no adequate knowledge of what he is doing when he performs an act instinctively; he has no end or aim in his mind; he simply feels his nervous system doing what it is fitted to do by its organic, adaptations to the stimulations of air, and earth, and sea, whatever these may be.
But it may be asked: Why do succeeding gen- erations improve each on its parents, so that there is a gradual tendency to perfect the instinct?
The answer to this question brings up another great law of biology — the principle of Variations. This principle states the common fact that in every case of a family of offspring the individual young THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 31 vary slightly in all directions from their parents. Admitting this, we will find in each group of fami- lies some young individuals which are better than their parents; these will have the advantage over others and will be the ones to grow up and have the children of the next generation again, and so on. So by constant Variation and Natural Selec- tion— that is, the " Survival of the Fittest " in competition with, the rest — there will be constant improvement in the Instinct.
2. The other theory, the rival one, holds that there are some instincts which show so plainly the marks of Reason that some degree of intelli- gent adjustment to the environment must be al- lowed to the animal in the acquiring of these functions. For example, we- are told that some of the muscular movements involved in the in- stincts— such, for example, as the bird's nest- building — are so complex and so finely adjusted to an end, that it is straining belief to suppose that they could have arisen gradually by reflex adaptation alone. There is also a further difficulty with the reflex theory which has seemed insur- mountable to many of the ablest psychologists of animal life; the difficulty, namely, that many of the instincts require the action of a great many muscles at the same time, so acting in " correla- tion " with or support of one another that it is impossible to suppose that the instinct has been acquired gradually. For in the very nature of these cases we can not suppose the instinct to have ever been imperfect, seeing that the partial . instinct which would have preceded the perfect performance for some generations would have been not only of no use to the creature, but in many cases positively injurious. For instance, 32 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
what use to an animal to be able partly to make the movements of swimming; or to the birds to build an inadequate nest? Such instincts would not be usable at all. So we are told by the sec- ond theory that the animals must have had intel- ligence to do these things when they first acquired them. Yet, as is everywhere admitted, after the. instinct has been acquired by the species it is then carried out without knowledge and intelligent de- sign, being handed down from generation to gen- eration by heredity.
This seems reasonable, for we do find that actions which were at first intelligent may be per- formed so frequently that we come to do them without thinking of them; to do them from habit. So the animals, we are told, have come to do theirs reflexly, although at first they required in- telligence. From this point of view — that al- though intelligence was at first required, yet the actions have become instinctive and lacking in intelligent direction in later generations — this is called the theory of Lapsed Intelligence.
This theory has much to commend it. It cer- tainly meets the objection to the reflex theory which was stated just above — the objection that some of the instincts could not have arisen by gradual reflex adaptations. It also accounts for the extremely intelligent appearance which many instincts have.
But this view in turn is liable to a criticism which has grown in force with the progress of bio- logical knowledge in recent years. This criticism is based on the fact that the theory of lapsed intel- ligence demands that the actions which the animals of one generation have acquired by their intelli- gence should be handed down through heredity THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 33 to the next generation, and so on. It is evident that unless this be true it does no good to the spe- cies for one generation to do things intelligently, seeing that if the effects on the nervous system are not transmitted to their children, then the next and later generations will have to start ex- actly where their fathers did, and the actions in question will never become ingrained in the nervous system at all.
Now, the force of this criticism is overwhelm- ing to those who believe — as the great majority of biologists now do * — that none of the modifica- tions or so-called " characters " acquired by the parents, none of the effects of use or disuse of their limbs, none of the tendencies or habits of action, in short, none of the changes wrought in body or mind of the parents during their lifetime, are inherited by their children. The only sorts of modification which show themselves in subse- quent generations are the deep-seated effects of disease, poison, starvation, and other causes which concern the system as a whole, but which show no tendency to reproduce by heredity any of the special actions or functions which the fathers and mothers may have learned and prac- tised. If this difficulty could be met, the theory that intelligence has been at work in the origina- tion of the complex instincts would be altogether the preferable one of the two; but if not, then the " lapsed intelligence " view must be thrown overboard.
Recent discussion of evolution has brought * The matter is still under discussion, however, and I do not mean in any way to deny the authority of those who still accept the " inheritance of acquired characters."
34 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
out a point of view under the name of Organic Selection which has a very fruitful application to this controversy over the origin of instincts. This point of view is one which in a measure reconciles the two theories. It claims that it is possible for the intelligent adaptations, or any sort of " accommodations," made by the indi- viduals of one generation, to set the direction of subsequent evolution, even though there be no direct inheritance of acquired characters from father to son. It proceeds in the case of instinct somewhat thus: Suppose we say, with the first theory given above, that the organism has certain reflexes which show some degree of adaptation to the environment; then suppose we admit the point, urged by the advocates of the lapsed intelligence theory, that the gradual improvement of these reflexes by variations in the endowment of suc- cessive generations would not suffice for the origin of instinct, seeing that partial instincts would not be useful; and, further, suppose we agree that many of the complex instincts really involved intelligent adaptation in their acquisi- tion. These points carefully understood, then , one new and further principle will enable us to complete a theory which will avoid the objec- tions to both the others. This principle is noth- ing else than what we have seen already — namely, that the intelligence supplements the partial in- stincts in each generation and makes them useful in the respects in which they are inadequate, and so keeps the young alive in successive genera- tions as long as the instinct is imperfect. This gives the species time gradually to supplement its instinctive endowment, in the course of many THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL.
35 generations each of which uses its intelligence in the same way: time to accumulate, by the oc- currence of variations among the offspring, the changes in the nervous system which the perfect instinct requires. Thus as time goes on the de- pendence of each generation upon the aid of in- telligence is less and less, until the nervous sys- tem becomes capable of performing the function quite alone. The result then will be the same as if the acquisitions made by each generation had been inherited, while in reality they have not. All that this theory requires in addition to what is admitted by both the historical views is that the species be kept alive long enough by the aid of its intelligence, which supplements imperfect instincts, to give it time to produce sufficient va- FlG. i. — Origin of instinct by Organic Selection: A «, perfect in- stinct, i, 2...n, successive generations. Solid lines, nerv- ous equipment in the direction of the instinct. Dotted lines, intelligence supplementing the nervous equipment. The intel- ligence is relied upon to keep the species alive until by congeni- tal variations the nervous equipment becomes " perfect."
nations in the right direction. The instinct then achieves its independence, and intelligent super- vision of it is no longer necessary (see Fig. i).
36 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
This theory is directly confirmed by the facts, already spoken of, which show that many instincts are imperfect, but are pieced out and made effec- tive by the intelligent imitations and acquisitions of the young creatures. Trie little chick, for ex- ample, does not know the value of water when he sees it, as essential as water is to his life; but he depends upon imitation of his mother's drinking, or upon the mere accident of wetting his bill, to stimulate his partial instinct of drinking in the peculiar fashion characteristic of fowls, by throw- ing back the head. So in other functions which are peculiar to a species and upon which their very lives depend, we find the delicate adjust- ment between intelligent adaptation by conscious action and the partially formed instincts which the creatures possess.
In the theory of Organic Selection, therefore, we seem to have a positive solution of the ques- tion of the origin of instinct. It is capable of a similar application in other cases where evolution has taken certain definite directions, seemingly guided by intelligence. It shows us that mind has had a positive place in the evolution of organic nature.
Animal Intelligence. — Coming to consider what further equipment the animals have, we light upon the fact just spoken of when we found it neces- sary to appeal in some measure to the animal's Intelligence to supplement his instincts. What is meant by Intelligence?
This word may be used in the broad sense of denoting all use of consciousness, or mind, con- sidered as a thing in some way additional to the reflexes of the nervous system. In the life of the THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 37 animal, as in that of man, wherever we find the individual doing anything with reference to a mental picture, using knowledge or experience in any form, then he is said to be acting intelli- gently.
The simplest form of intelligent action in the animal world and that from which most of the higher forms have arisen is illustrated in the fol- lowing example: a chick will peck at a strange worm, and, finding it unpalatable, will then in the future refuse to peck at worms of that sort. This refusal to do a second time what has once had a disagreeable result is intelligent. We now say that the chick " knows " that the worm is not good to eat. The instinctive action of pecking .at all worms is replaced by a refusal to peck at certain worms. Again, taking the reverse case, we find that the chick which did not respond to the sight of drinking water instinctively, but had to see the mother drink first, acted intelligently, or through a state of consciousness, when it imi- tated the old hen, and afterward drank of its own accord. It now "knows" that water is the thing to drink.
The further question which comes upon us here concerns the animal's acquisition of the action appropriate to carry out his knowledge. How does he learn the muscular combinations which supplement or replace the earlier instinctive ways of acting?
This question appears very clearly when we ask about the child's acquisition of new acts of skill. We find him constantly learning, modifying his habits, refining his ways of doing things, becom- ing possessed of quite new and complex functions, such as speech, handwriting, etc. All these are 38 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
intelligent activities; they are learned very gradu- ally and with much effort and pains. It is one of the most important and interesting questions of all psychology to ask how he manages to bring the nervous and muscular systems under greater and greater control by his mind. How can he modify and gradually improve his " reactions " — as we call his responses to the things and situa- tions about him — so as to act more and more intelligently?
The answer seems to be that he proceeds by what has been called Experimenting. He does not simply do things because he has intelligence, — simply that is, because he sees how to do them without first learning how; that is the older and probably quite erroneous view of intelligence. The mind can not move the body simply by its fiat. No man can do that. Man, like the little ani- mal, has to try things and keep on trying things, in order to find out the way they work and what their possibilities are. And each animal, man, beast, or bird has to do it for himself. Apart from the instinctive actions which the child does without knowing their value at all, and apart from the equally instinctive imitative way of do- ing them without aiming at learning more by the imitations, he proceeds in all cases to make experi- ments. Generally his experiments work through acts of imitation. He imitates what he sees some other creature do; or he imitates his own instinc- tive actions by setting up before him in his mind the memories of the earlier performance; or, yet again, after he has struck a fortunate combina- tion, he repeats that imitatively. Thus, by the principle already spoken of, he stores up a great mass of Kinsesthetic Equivalents, which linger in THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 39 memory, and enable him to act appropriately when the proper circumstances come in his way. He also gets what we have called Associations established between the acts and the pleasure or pain which they give, and so avoids the painful and repeats the pleasurable ones.
The most fruitful field of this sort of imitative learning is in connection with the " try-try-again " struggles of the young, especially children. This is called Persistent Imitation The child sees be- fore him some action to imitate — some complex act of manipulation with the hand, let us say. He tries to perform it in an experimental way, using the muscles of the hand and arm. With this he strains himself all over, twisting his tongue, bending his body, and grimacing from head to foot, so to speak. Thus he gets a cer- tain way toward the correct result, but very crudely and inexactly. Then he tries again, pro- ceeding now on the knowledge which the first effort gave him; and his trial is less uncouth because he now suppresses some of the hinder- ing grimacing movements and retains the ones which he sees to be most nearly correct. Again he tries, and again, persistently but gradually reducing the blundering movements to the pat- tern of the copy, and so learning to perform the act of skill.
The massive and diffused movements which he makes by wriggling and fussing are also of direct use to him. They increase remarkably the chances that among them all there will be some movements which will hit the mark, and so con- tribute to his stock of correct Equivalents. Dogs and monkeys learn to unlock doors, let down fence rails, and perform relatively complex ac- 40 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
tions by experimenting persistently with many varied movements until the successful ones are finally struck.
This is the type of all those acts of experi- menting by which new complex movements are acquired. In children it proceeds largely with- out interference from others; the child persists of himself. Ha has greater ability than the ani- mals to see the meaning of the completed act and to really desire to acquire it. With the ani- mals the acquisitions do not extend very far, on account of their limitation in intelligent endow- ment; but in the training of the domestic ani- mals and in the education of show-animals the trainer aids them and urges them on by making use of the associations of pleasure and pain spoken of above. He supplements the animal's feelings of pain and pleasure with the whip and with rewards of food, etc., so that each step of the animal's success or failure has acute asso- ciations with pain or pleasure. Thus the animal gradually gets a number of associations formed, avoids the actions with which pain is associated, repeats those which call up memories of pleasure all the way through an extended performance in regular steps; and in the result the performance so closely counterfeits the operations of high in- telligence— such as counting, drawing cards, etc. — that the audience is excited to admiration.
This first glimpse of the animal's limitations when compared with man may suggest the gen- eral question, how far the brutes go in their intel- ligent endowment. The proper treatment of this much-debated point requires certain further ex- planations.
In the child we find a tendency to act in cer- THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 41 tain ways toward all objects, events, etc., which are in any respect alike. After learning to use the hands, for example, for a certain act, the same hand movements are afterward used for other similar acts which the child finds it well to per- form. He thus tends, as psychologists say, to "generalize," that is, to take up certain general attitudes which will answer for a great many de- tails of experience. On the side of the reception of his items of knowledge this was called Assimi- lation, as will be remembered. This saves him enormous trouble and risk; for as soon as an object or situation presents itself before him with certain general aspects, he can at once take up the attitude appropriate to these general aspects without waiting to learn the particular features of the new. The ability to do this shows itself in two rather different ways which seem respec- tively to characterize man on the one hand and the lower animals on the other.
With the animals this tendency to generalize, to treat objects in classes rather than as indi- viduals, takes the form of a sort of composition or direct union of brain pathways. Different experiences are had, and then because they are alike they tend to issue in the same channels of action. The animal is tied down strictly to his experience; he does not anticipate to any extent what is going to happen. He does not use one experience as a symbol and apply it beforehand to other things and events. He is in a sense passive; stimulations rain down upon him, and force him into certain attitudes and ways of action. As far as his knowledge is "general" it is called a Recept. A dog has a Recept of the whip; so far as whips are not too different from 42 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
one another, the dog will act in the same way toward all of them. In man, on the other hand, the development of mind has gone a decided step further. The child very quickly begins to use symbols, words being the symbols of first im- portance to him. He does not have, like the brute, to wait for successive experiences of like objects to impress themselves upon him; but he goes out toward the new, expecting it to be like the old, and so acting as to anticipate it. He thus falls naturally into general ways of acting which it is the function of experience to refine and distinguish. He seems to have more of the higher sort of what was called above Appercep- tion, as opposed to the more concrete and acci- dental Associations of Ideas. He gets Concepts, as opposed to the Recepts of the animals. With this goes the development of speech, which some psychologists consider the source of all the man's superiority over the animals. Words become sym- bols of a highly abstract sort for certain classes of experiences; and, moreover, through speech a means of social communication is afforded by which the development of the individual is enor- mously advanced.
It is probable, in fact, that this difference — that between the Generalization which uses sym- bols, and mere Association — is the root of all the differences that follow later on, and give man the magnificent advantage over the animals which he has. From it is developed the faculty of think- ing, reasoning, etc., in which man stands practi- cally alone. On the brain side, it requires special developments both through the preparation of certain brain centres given over to the speech function, and also through the greater organiza- THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 43 tion of the gray matter of the cerebral cortex, to which we revert again in a later chapter. In- deed, looked at from the side of the development of the brain, we see that there is no break be- tween man and the animals in the laws of or- ganization, but that the difference is one of evo- lution.
Later on in the life of the child we find an- other contrast connected with the difference of social life and organization as between the ani- mals and man. The animals probably do not have a highly organized sense of Self as man does; and the reason doubtless is that such a Self-consciousness is the outcome of life and ex- perience in the very complex social relations in which the human child is brought up, and which he alone is fitted by his inherited gifts to sustain.
The Play of Animals. — Another of the most in- teresting questions of animal life is that which concerns their plays. Most animals are given to play. Indeed that they indulge in a remarkable variety of sports is well known even to the novice in the study of their habits. Beginning when very young, they gambol, tussle, leap, and run together, chase one another, play with inanimate objects, as the kitten with the ball, join in the games of chil- dren and adults, as the dog which plays hide and seek with his little master, and all with a knowing- ness and zest which makes them the best of com- panions. The volumes devoted to the subject give full accounts of these plays of animals, and we need not repeat them; the psychologist is interested, however, mainly in the general func- tion of play in the life of the individual animal and child, and in the psychological states and motives which it reveals. Play, whether in ani- 44 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
mals or in man, shows certain general character- sties which we may briefly consider.
1. The plays of animals are very largely in- stinctive, being indulged in for the most part without instruction. The kitten leaps impulsively to the game. Little dogs romp untaught, and fall, as do other animals also, when they are strong enough, into all the playful attitudes which mark their kind. This is seen strikingly among adult animals in what are called the courtship plays. The birds, for example, indulge in elab- orate and beautiful evolutions of a playful sort at the mating season.
2. It follows from their instinctive character that animal plays are peculiar to the species which perform them. We find series of sports peculiar to dogs, others to cats, and so on through all the species of the zoological garden, whether the creatures be wild or tame. Each shows its species as clearly by its sportive habits as by its shape, cry, or any other of what are called its " specific " habits. This is important not only to the zoologist, as indicating differences of evolu- tion and scale of attainment, environment, etc., but also to the psychologist, as indicating differ- ences of what we may call animal temperament. Animals show not only the individual differences which human beings do, one liking this game and another that, one being leader in the sport and another the follower, but also the greater differ- ences which characterize races. The Spaniards love the bull fight; other nations consider it re- pulsive, and take their fun in less brutal forms, although, perchance, they tolerate Rugby foot- ball! So the animals vary in their tastes, some playing incessantly at fighting, and so zealously THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 45 as to injure one another, while others like the milder romp, and the game with flying leaves, rolling stones, or the incoming waves on the shore.
3. Psychologically, the most interesting char- acteristic of animal, as of human, play is what is called the " make-believe " state of mind which enters into it. If we consider our own sports we find that, in the midst of the game, we are in a condition of divided consciousness. We indulge in the scheme of play, whatever it be, as if it were a real situation, at the same time preserving our sense that it is not real. That is, we distinguish through it all the actual realities, but make the convention with our companions that for the time we will act together as if the playful situation were real. With it there is a sense that it is a mat- ter of voluntary indulgence that can stop at anytime; that the whole temporary illusion to which we submit is strictly our own doing, a job which we have " put up " on ourselves. That is what is meant by make-believe.