Unconscious Memory

conscious in Instinct," from Von Hart

hapter on instin

of a purpose but without conscious p

f fury on the part of offended or otherwise enraged animals. I see no occasion for disturbing the commonly received definition of instinct as given above; for those who think they can refer all the so-c

f instinctive action as above d

consequence of bodil

f brain or mind c

of an unconscious

upposed to be brought about by means of an initial arrangement, either of bodily or mental mechanism, purpose being conceived of as existing on a single occasion only-that is to say,

e consequence of bodi

yet they may be endowed

he species of a single genus, as of parus. Many birds, moreover, build no nest at all. The difference in the songs of birds are in like manner independent of the special construction of their voice apparatus, nor do the modes of nest construction that obtain among ants and bees depend upon their bodily organisation. Organisation, as a general rule, only renders the bird capable of singing, as giving it an apparatus with which to sing at all, but it has nothing to do with the specific character of the execution . . . The nursing, defence, and education of offspring cannot be considered as in any way more dependent up

ay be found associate

e the burying-beetle does the same thing though it has no special apparatus whatever. The mole conveys its winter provender in pockets, an inch wide, long and half an inch wide within its cheeks; the field-mouse does so

he organ does not constitute even the smallest incentive to any corresponding habitual activity. A sensation of pleasure must at least accompany the use of the organ before its existence can incite to its employment. And even so when a sensation of pleasure has given the impulse which is to render it active, it is only the fact of there being activity at all, and not the special characteristics of the activity, that can be due to organisation. The reason for the special mo

it, and do this again and again until they die of exhaustion. The same holds good with the other instincts that at first sight appear to be inspired only by a sensation of pleasure; for if we change the circumstances, so as to put self-sacrifice in the place of self-interest, it becomes at once apparent that they have a higher source than this. We think, for example, that birds pair for the sake of mere sexual gratification; why, then, do they leave off pairing as soon as they have laid the requisite number of eggs? That there is a reproductive instinct over and above the desire for sexual gratification appears from the fact th

dealing with a physical. A psychical organisation would be a conceivable explanation and we need look no farther if every instinct once belonging to an animal discharged its functions in an unvarying manner. But this is never found to be the case, for instincts vary when there arises a sufficient motive for varying them. This proves that special exterior circumstances enter into the matter, and that these circumstances are the very things that render the attainment of the purpose possible through means selected by

owed to pass (if we also suppose that entirely different keys can give out the same sound) if instincts could only be compared with distinctly tuned notes, so that one and the same instinct acted always in the same manner on the rising of the motive which should set it in ac

e instinct, proves that there is no necessity for the supposition of such an elaborate mental mechanism-the presence of an unconscious purpose being sufficient to explain the facts. The purpose of the bird, for example, that has laid her eggs is constant, and consists in the desire to bring her young to maturity. When the temperature of the air is insufficient to effect this, she sits upon her eggs, and only intermits her sittings in the warmest countries; the mammal, on the other hand, attains the fulfilment of its instinctive purpose without any co-operation on its own part. In warm climat

esemble those of the birds in whose nests she lays. Sylvia ruja, for example, lays a white egg with violet spots; Sylvia hippolais, a red one with black spots; Regulus ignic

etween the combs. When the full combs have become too heavy, they strengthen the walls of the uppermost or bearing cells by thickening them with wax and propolis. If larv? of working bees are introduced into the cells set apart for drones, the working bees will cover these cells with the flat lids usual for this kind of larv?, and not with the round ones that are proper for drones. In autumn, as a general rule, bees kill their drones, but they refrain from doing this when they have lost their queen, and keep them to fertilise the young queen, who wil

led, as it were, off a reel mechanically, according to an invariable system, but that they adapt themselves most closely to the circumst

mpels her to build pentagonal ones at the sides? Are there two separate kinds of thing, one of which induces birds under certain circumstances to sit upon their eggs, while another leads them under certain other circumstances to refrain from doing so? And does this hold good also with bees when they at one time kill their brethren without mercy and at another grant them their lives? Or with birds when they construct the kind of nest peculiar to their race, and, again, any special provision which they may think fit under certain circumstances to take? If it is once granted that the normal and the abnormal manifestations of instinct-and they are often incapable of being distinguished-spring

mpression; this is the first link of the process; the last link [101] appears as the conscious motive of an action. Both, however, are entirely unlike, and neither has anything to do with ordinary motivation, which consists exclusively in the desire that springs from a conception either of pleasure or dislike-the

hunger, rendered relief imperative? Yet we may see that even though an animal has grown up apart from any others of its kind, it will yet none the less manifest the instinctive impulses of its race, though experience can have taught it nothing whatever concerning the pleasure that will ensue upon their gratification. As regards instinct, therefore, there must be a causal connection between the motivating sensual conception and the will to perform the instinctive actio

ation, every other kind of will, and that vibrations of this kind, when set up in the brain, become always consciously perceived; nor is it easy to conceive in what way this metamorphosis c

attained the logical mechanism peculiar to and inseparable from all mind, and find unconscious purpose to be an indispensable link in every instinctive action. With this, therefore, the conception of a mental mechanism, dead and predestined from without, has disappeared, and has become transformed into the spiritual life inseparable from logic, so that we have reached the sole remaining requirement for the conception of an actual instinct, which proves to be a conscious willing of the means towards an unconsciously willed purpose. This conception explains clearly and without violence all the

pressly called into being by the unconscious formative principle in generation, so as to facilitate action in a given direction. This last will be the case more frequently in respect of exterior organisation-as, for example, with the weapons or working organs of animals-while to the former must be referred the molecular condition of brain and ganglia which bring about the perpetually recurring elements of an instinct such as the hexagonal shape of the cells of bees. We shall presently see that by individual character we mean the sum of the individual methods of reaction against all possible motives, and that this character depends essentially upon a c

inct as cannot be referred to conscious deliberation are

the embryonic development by a purposive unconscious activity of growth. It must be admit

inherited can only be effected by long practice, consequently the instinct withou

agation and metamorphoses of the lower forms of life, and none of those instinctive omissions of action, neglect of which necessarily entails death-can be conceived as hav

oses it. This is shown by the possibility of departure from the normal type of action, so that the unconscious purpose is always stronger than the ganglionic constit

there, namely, actually such a thing as instinct, [105c] or are all so

ciency is only partly dependent upon natural capacity, but is in great measure due to practice and cultivation of the original faculty. A philologist, for example, is unskilled in questions of jurisprudence; a natural philosopher or mathematician, in philology; an abstract philosopher, in poetical criticism. Nor has this anything to do with the natural talents of the several persons, but follows as a consequence of their special

reover, that actions which have their source in conscious intelligence are of one and the same kind, whether among the lower animals or with mankind-that is to say, that they are acquired by apprenticeship or instruction and perfected by practice; so that the saying, "Age brings wisdom," holds good with the brutes as much as with ourselves. Instinctive actions, on the contrary, have a special and distinct character, in that they are performed with no less proficiency by animals that have been reared in solitude than by those that have been instructed by their parents, the first essays of a hitherto unpractised animal being as successful as its later ones. There is a difference in principle here which cannot be mistaken. Aga

limited, intellectual power. When, however, the time comes for the larva of this moth to become a chrysalis, it spins for itself a double cocoon, fortified with bristles that point outwards, so that it can be opened easily from within, though it is sufficiently impenetrable from without. If this contrivance were the result of conscious reflection, we should have to suppose some such reasoning process as the following to take place in the mind of the caterpillar:-"I am about to become a chrysalis, and, motionless as I must be, shall be exposed to many different kinds of attack. I

On the contrary, I have already insisted at some length that both the two kinds of mental activity may co-exist in all manner of different proportions, so that there may be every degree of combination, from pure instinct to pure delib

e of those minute microscopic organisms that baffle our attempts to classify them either as animals or vegetables, we are still compelled to admire an instinctive, purposive behaviour, which goes far beyond a mere reflex responsive to a stimulus from without; all doubt, therefore, concerning the actual existence of an instinct must be at an end, an

at a small distance from the circumference, and, as a rule, at regular distances from one another. These rapidly develop themselves into well-defined spherical air vesicles, and come presently to fill a considerable part of the hollow of the shell, thereby driving part of the protoplasm outside it. After from five to twenty minutes, the specific gravity of the arcella is so much lessened that it is lifted by the water with its pseudopodia, and brought up against the upper surface of the water-drop, on which it is able to travel. In from five to ten minutes the vesicles will now disappear, the

protoplasm of the pseudopodia develops no air. After long and fruitless efforts a manifest fatig

intentional. The object of the air-vesicles is to bring the animal into such a position that it can take fast hold of something with its pseudopodia. When this has been obtained, the air disappears without our being able to discover any other reason for its disappearance than the fact that it is no longer needed. . . . If we bear these circumstances in mind, we can almost always tell whether an arcella will develop air-vesicles or no; and if it has already developed them, we c

hen, it can be shown that data absolutely indispensable for the arrival at a just conclusion cannot by any possibility have been known consciously, the result can no longer be held as having had its source in conscious deliberation. It is admitted that the only way in which consciousness can arrive at a knowledge of exterior facts is by way of an impres

he senses, inasmuch as no information can be derived concerning them except through experie

ened in respect of many that I have adduced hitherto. For it is hardly more difficult to conceive of à priori knowledge, disconnected from any impression made upon the senses, than of knowledge which, it is true, does at the present day manifest itself upon the occasion of cer

size, but the male makes one as long again as himself, so as to allow for the growth of his horns, which will be about the same length as his body. A knowledge of this circumstance is indispensable if

nothing in any other respect alarming in the adder, a conscious knowledge of the danger of its bite is indispensable, if the conduct above described is to be referred to conscious deliberation. But this could only have been acquired through experience, and the possibility of such experience may be controlled in the case of animals that have

s in consonance with our consciousness can indeed, under certain circumstances, become tolerably definite, so that in the case of man it can be expressed in thought and language; but experience teaches us that even among ourselves this is not so when instincts special to the human race come into play; we see rather that the echo of our unconscious knowledge which finds its way into our consciousness is so weak that it manifests itself only in the accompanying feelings or frame of mind, and represents but an infinitely small fraction of the sum of our sensations. It is obvious that such a faintly sympathetic consciousness cannot form a sufficient foundation for a superstructure of conscious deliberation;

re condition of mind as is implied when the word presentiment is used; on the contrary, this absolute certainty is so characteristic a feature of instinctive actions, that it constitutes almost the only well-marked point of distinction between these and actions that are done upon reflection. But from this it must again follo

at theory is based, and is forced upon us by facts. I must therefore adduce examples. And to give a name to the unconscious knowledge, which is not acquired through impression made upon the senses, but which will be found to be in our possession,

m will presently pierce their hides and occasion them painful sores. These "dassel" flies-which have no sting-closely resemble another kind of gadfly which has a sting. Nevertheless, this last kind is little feared by cattle, while the first is so to an inordinate extent. The laying of the eggs upon the skin is at the time quite painless, and no ill consequences follow until long afterwards, so that we cannot suppose the cattle to draw a conscious inference concerning the connection that exists between the two. I have already spoken of the foresight shown by ferrets and buzzards in respect of adders; in like manner a young honey-buzzard, on being shown a wasp for the first time, immediately devoured it after having squeezed the sting from its body. No animal, whose instinct has not been vitiated by unnatural habits, will eat poisonous plants. Even when apes have contracted bad habits through their having been brought into contact with mankind, they can still be trusted to show us whether certain fruits found in their native forests are poisonous or no; for if poisonous fruits are offered them they will refuse them with loud cries. Every animal will choose for its sustenance exactly those animal or vegetable substances which agree best with its digestive organs, without having received any instruction on the matter, and without testing them beforehand. Even, indeed, though we assume that the power of distinguishing the different kinds of food is due to sight and not to smell, it remains none the less mysterious how the animal can know what it is that will agree with it. Thus the kid which Galen took prematurely from its mother smelt at all the different kinds of food that were set before it, but drank only the milk without touching anything else. The cherry-finch opens a cherry-stone by turning it so that her beak can hit the part where the two sides join, and does this as much with the first stone she cracks as with the last. Fitchets, martens, and weasels make small holes on the opposite sides of an egg which they are about to suck, so that the air may come in while they are sucking. Not only do animals know the food that will suit them best, but they find out the most suitable remedies when they are ill, and constantly form a co

her and preparing new webs, there will be cold weather within the next nine days, or from that to twelve: when they again hide themselves there will be a thaw. I have no doubt that much of this power of prophesying the weather is due to a perception of certain atmospheric conditions which escape ourselves, but this perception can only have relation to a certain actual and now present condition of the weather; and what can the impression made by this have to do with their idea of the weather that will ensue? No one will ascribe to animals a power of prognosticating the weather months beforehand by means of inferences drawn logically from a series of observations, [119b] to the extent of being able to foretell floods. It is far more probable that the power of perceiving subtle differences of actual atmospheric condition is nothing more than the sensual perception which acts as motive-for a motive must assuredly be always present-when an instinct comes i

Certain butterflies are polymorphic, and not only do the males and females of the same species differ, but the females present two distinct forms, one of which as a general rule mimics the outward appearance of a distant but highly valued species; yet the males will pair only with the females of their own kind, and not with the strangers, though these may be very likely much more like the males themselves. Among the

gh the men whose trade it is to do this recognise them as their masters. The solitary wasp makes a hole several inches deep in the sand, lays her egg, and packs along with it a number of green maggots that have no legs, and which, being on the point of becoming chrysalides, are well nourished and able to go a long time without food; she packs these maggots so closely together that they cannot move nor turn into chrysalides, and just enough of them to support the larva until it becomes a chrysalis. A kind of bug (cerceris bupresticida), which itself lives only upon pollen, lays her eggs in an underground cell, and with each one of them she deposits three beetles, which she has lain in wait for and captured when they were still weak through having only just left off being chrysalides. She kills these beetles, and appears to smear them with a fluid whereby she preserves them fresh and suitable for food. Many kinds of wasps open the cells in which their larv? are confined when these must have consumed the provision that was left with them. They supply them with more food, and again close the cell. Ants, again, hit always upon exactly the right moment for opening the cocoons in which their larv? are confined and for setting them free, the larva being unable to do this for itself. Yet the life of only a few kinds of insects lasts longer than a single breeding season. What then can they know about the contents of their eggs and the fittest place for their development? What can they know about the kind of food the larva will want when it leaves the egg-a food so different from their own? What, again, can they know about the quantity of food that will be necessary? How much of all this at least can they know consciously? Yet their actions, the pains they take, and the importance they evidently attach to these matters, prove that they have a foreknowledge of the future: this knowledge therefore c

iologists will make of the half-sleeping, half-waking condition of those whom they are influencing. "People in perfectly sound health have been known, before childbirth or at the commencement of an illness, to predict accurately their own approaching death. The accomplishment of their predictions can hardly be explained as the result of mere chance, for if this were all, the prophecy should fail at least as often as not, whereas the reverse is actually the case. Many of these persons neither desire death nor fear it, so that the result cannot be ascribed to imagination." So writes the celebrated physiologist, Burdach, from whose chapter on presentiment in his work "Bhicke in's Leben" a great part of my most striking examples is taken. This presentiment of deaths, which is the exception among men, is quite common with animals, even though they do not know nor understand what death is. When they become aware that their end is approaching, they steal away to outlying and solitary places. This is why in cities we so rarely see the dead body or skeleton of a cat. We can only suppose that the unconscious clairvoyance, which is of essentially the same kind whether in man or beast, calls forth presentiments of different degrees of definiteness, so that the cat is driven to withdraw herself through a mere instinct without knowing why she does so, while in man a definite perception is awakened of the fact that he is about to die. Not only do people have presentiments concerning their own death, but there are many instances on record in which they have become aware of that of those near and dear to them, the dying person having appeared in a dream to friend or wife or husband. Stories to this effect prevail among all nations, and unquestionably contain much truth. Closely connected with this is the power of second sight, which existed formerly in Scotland, and still does so in the Danish islands. Th

phenomena so long as it remains in ignorance of the facts that have been related concerning them; but, again, a continuance in this ignorance can only arise from unwillingness to be convinced. I am satisfied that many of those who deny all human power of divination would come to another, and, to say the least, more cautious conclusion if they would be at the pains of further investigation; and I hold that no one, even at the present day, need be ashamed of j

ch we observe in human and animal instinct. Even though they only continue this series [128] through the echo that is awakened within our consciousness, they as powerfully support the account which instinctive actions give concerning their own nature, as they are themselves supported by the analogy they pre

upposition of an unconscious clairvoyance on the part of instinct. In the examples adduced hitherto, the action of each individual has been done on the individual's own behalf

annot in its main points be ascribed to an understanding arrived at through speech. Huber observed that when a new comb was being constructed a number of the largest working-bees, that were full of honey, took no part in the ordinary business of the others, but remained perfectly aloof. Twenty-four hours afterwards small plates of wax had formed under their bellies. The bee drew these off with her hind-feet, masticated them, and made them into a band. The small plates of wax thus prepared were then glued to the roof of the hive one on the top of the other. When one of the bees of this kind had used up her plates of wax, another followed her and carried the same work forward in the same way. A thin rough vertical wall, half a line in thickness and fastened to the sides of the hive, was thus constructed. On this, one of the smaller working-bees whose belly was empty came, and after surveying the wall, made a flat half-oval excavation in the middle of one of its sides; she piled up the wax thus excavated round the edge of the excavation. After a short time she was relieved by another like her

actly the manner in which an instinct works; and as the intention of the entire community is instinctively present in the unconscious clairvoyance [131a] of each individual bee, so the possession of this common instinct impels each one of them to the discharge of her special duties when the right moment has arrived. It is only thus that the wonderful tranquillity and order which we observe could be attained. What we are to think concerning this common instinct must be reserved for explanation later on, but the possibility of its existence is already evident, inasmuch [131b] as each individual has an unconscious insight concerning the plan proposed to itself by the community, and also concerning the means immediately to be adopted through concerted action-of which, however, only the part requiring his own co-operation is present in the consciousness of each. Thus, for example, the larva of the bee itself spins the silky chamber in which it is to become a chrysalis, but other bees must close it with its lid of wax. The purpose of there being a chamber in which the larva can become a chrysalis must be present in the minds of each of these

re, we have arrived at t

a purpose once for all thought out, and now become a matter of necessity to the individual, so that he can act in no other way, though it is engrafted into his nature from without, and not natural to it. The purpose of the instinct is in each individual case thought out and willed unconsciously by the individual, and afterwards the choice of means adapted to each particular case is arrived at unconsciously. A knowledge of the purpose is often absolutely unattainable [133] by conscious knowledge through sensual perception. Then does the peculiarity of the unconscious display

ged, firstly, that clairvoyance is not confined to instinct, but is found also in man; secondly, that clairvoyance is by no means present in all instincts, and that therefore our experience shows us clairvoyance and instinct as two distinct things-clairvoyance being of great use in explaining instinct, but in

f to death; of the disquiet and grief displayed by all migratory animals if they are prevented from migrating. A captive cuckoo will always die at the approach of winter through despair at being unable to fly away; so will the vineyard snail if it is hindered of its winter sleep. The weakest mother will encounter an enemy far surpassing her in strength, and suffer death cheerfully for her offspring's sake. Every year we see fresh cases of people who have been unfortunate going mad or committing suicide. Women who have survived the C?sarian operation allow

, nor in some measure even with the highest animals; and it is through this want of uniformity that there is such a thing as individuality. The external conditions of all the individuals of a species are also tolerably similar, and when they differ essentially, the instincts are likewise different-a fact in support of which no examples are necessary. From like conditions of mind and body (and this includes like predispositions of brain and ganglia) and like exterior circumstances, like desires will follow as a necessary logical consequenc

ns the very last point which it may be thought worth while t

s will hold the phenomena of animal instinct to belong to the most importa