INSTINCT
53
INSTINCT
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 in- stincts, meaning thereby highly developed or mech- anized 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 estal> lished 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 lioth possilile and neces.sary. Among the higher animals many instincts are relatively plastic, that is, they are modified by the individual experience of the animal. This rentiers 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 ap- pear, a fact which renders it difficult to observe un- modified 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 l)e 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 func- tions, but many of the instincts make their appearance for the first time in the appropriate phase of neural and mental development. Again, while the appear- ance of the instinct is relatively late in the develop- mental 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 in- stincts much more plastic, or, in other words, much more amenalile to the control of educative agencies than they would be if they appearerl 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 anil protluce their crop of undesirable results; they cannot be suppressed indiscriminately, because they are the native roots on which all habits that are of entluring strength in human life are grafted. On the other hand, many instincts are highly undesirable; their full development would, in fact, mean the pro- duction of criminals. For explanation of these in- stincts 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, wdiich con- stitute 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, civiUzed
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 standaril shall lie employed in determining
which instincts shall be inhibited and which rein-
forced, and what methods shall be employed in di-
recting 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 endow- ment of intellect determine for himself, "experimen- tally", 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 unfold- ing 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 unsatisfac- tory character of the earlier phase, antl thus be leil 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 outhned. She maintains that, whatever may be the nature of the child's instincts, he must be leil 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 good- ness which has been revealed to man and has been accepted by the msdom 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 tloctrine of recapitulation on which the culture epoch theory rests is a doctrine of embryology where it is held t hat ontogeny is a recapit- ulation 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 func- tioning to the adult plane by the parent. .\nd 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, through 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 develop-
