Abstract
BIOLOGY is a science not only of the dead but of the living. The behaviour of animals, not less than their form and structure, demands our careful study. Both are dependent on that heredity which is a distinguishing characteristic of the organic world. And in each case heredity has a double part to play. It provides much that is relatively fixed and stereotyped; but it provides also a certain amount of plasticity or ability to conform to the modifying conditions of the environment. Instinctive behaviour belongs to the former category; intelligent behaviour to the latter. When a caterpillar spins its silken cocoon, unaided, untaught, and without the guidance of previous experience; or when a newly-mated bird builds her nest and undertakes the patient labours of incubation before experience can have begotten anticipations of the coming brood; we say that the behaviour is instinctive. But when an animal learns the lessons of life, and modifies its procedure in accordance with the results of its individual experience, we no longer use the term instinctive, but intelligent. Instinct, therefore, comprises those phases of active life which exhibit such hereditary definiteness as fits the several members of a species to meet certain oft-recurring or vitally-important needs. To intelligence belong those more varied modes of procedure which an animal adopts in adaptation to the peculiar circumstances of its individual existence. Instinctive acts take their place in the class of what are now generally known as congenital characters; intelligent acts in the class of acquired characters.
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Instinct and Intelligence in Animals1. Nature 57, 326–330 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/057326a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/057326a0