Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1912. WHAT IS INSTINCT?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue XLVII, 9 November 1912, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1912. WHAT IS INSTINCT?

THE extent of knowledge which has been won by investigations into the nature and constitution of the mind is very limited indeed. The phenomena of conscious thought have been roughly explored ; but no man has yet been able to discover the processes that go on in the region of the mind which lies below conscious thought. But all the time keen psychologists are busily working, and the task of classifying observed phenomena still goes on. In the domain of psychology the latest addition to the sum of human knowledge—and theory—is a book entitled "Instinct and Experience," by Dr. C. Lloyd Morgan, Professor of Psychology and Ethics in the University of Bristol. The main purpose of the work is to advocate the doctrine that there is one science of nature, inclusive of inorganic, organic, and mental processes and products, in opposition to the teaching of supporters of vitalism and animism as represented by M. Bergson and Dr. M'Dougall. His business, according to the reviewers, is to deal with processes and products as existent. AVhat then is the Source of process? That, he says, is a question for metaphysics, not for science.

The burden of the professor's contention is. in his own words, that "the history of the universe, so far as we are able to read it, is one continuous story, every episode in which is, if one may so phrase it, logically correlated with other relevant episodes." Applying this doctrine to the phenomena of instinctive behaviour and its accompanying experience, the author proceeds to trace out exactly what goes on in the lower brain-centres of a young waterfowl when it dives for the first time on being scared by a barking dog. Racial preparation and an emotional shock induce action which is primarily subconscious, but is also, probably, influenced in part by "conscious cortical processes." It seems that knowledge as to the working of the brain has been gained by many drastic experiments upon animals. Thoroughgoing scientists with German names are quoted by this author as to the conduct of "decerebrate" dogs and pigeons. A decerebrate animal or bird is one "in which 1 the cerebral hemispheres and their cortex have been destroyed, leaving, however, the sub-cortical centres and the spinal cord intact and functionally effective." It appears, according to one German scientist, that a pigeon which has had its brain removed in the interests of science "is able to maintain a completely normal posture, and can balance itseff on one leg after the fashion of a bird which has in a natural way gbne to sleep. Placed on its side or its ' back it will regain its feet; thrown into the air, it flies with considerable precision for some distance before, it returns to rest. It frequently tucks its head under its wings, and at times may ibe seen to clean its feathers. When its i beak is plunged into corn it eats." Furi ther interesting particulars are supplied [by another German observer, who re- ' marks:—"To these (decerebrate pigeons) I all objects are alike. They have noenemies and no' friends. They live like hermits, no matter in how large a comi pany they find themselves. The languishing coo of the male makes as little impression on the female deprived of her cerebrum as the rattling of peas or the whistle which formerly made her hasten to her feeding place. Neither does the female show interest in her young. The young ones that have just learnt to fly pursue the mother, crying unceasingly for food, but' they might as well beg food of a stone."

Then there is another German, a certain Dr. Goltz, who "decerebrated" a dog, and kept the animal alive in a cage for 18 months *to study its behaviour. . The dog without a brain "would lie curled up like a normal dog,- it could be aroused/by the loud blowing of a horn." When that was done "it would put ita paw up to its ear as if something unpleasant had happened." And every j day for 18 months, when removed from its cage to be fed, it growled, snapped, snarled, and bit. No wonder. It "had no memory, but still possessed desires as physiological tendencies and instinctive reactions." It is interesting to note that a decerebrate animal is always snapping and snarling. The author explains that "pleasure is correlated with s cortical process, but pain need not be so correlated." The deduction is made from all these phenomena that "much behaviour of the instinctive order is relatively unaffected by the loss of the cerebrum." On the one point of pure instinct it appears to be demonstrated by the author that the motive impulses have their origin not in the cerebral hemispheres—the brain proper—but in the inherited dispositions within "the lower sub-cortical centres and the spinal column. Here, then, possibly, may be found the explanation of the abnormal congenital, capacity of Mozart, who was a brilliant musician at the age of fo'ur, and of Pascal, who 'lisped in numbers," not in the pc'el's sense, but in the mathematician's. The ability of each was presumably instinctive—the result of an inheritance deposited not in the conscious brain but in the automatically working lower nerve-centres and spinal column. One of the most disquieting problems which seems to be presented

by Professor Morgan's argument is this. Seeing that a "decerebrate" dog is obviously conscious of what is going on around him—so conscioits that he snaps and snarls at the attendant who removes him from his cage—is it not a necessary implication, asked o'ne writer, that a man who has had his brains blown out is similarly conscious at any rate for an appreciable time after the occurrence; and thus the martyred saint, who, after being decapitated, took up his head in his two hands, and walked off with it, begins to be scientifically possible.