Thinking and doing / by Harry Roberts.

  • Harry Roberts
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Thinking and doing / by Harry Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    36/106 page 30
    write and talk about these things do notalways dis- tinguish between what may be called Nature’s purpose in furnishing us with a particular instinct- ive inclination, and the aim which the human or other animal has in mind when he follows this inclination. This distinction is, however, obvious when we consider our involuntary reflex actions. Nature’s purpose in the reflex closing of the eyelid when danger threatens the eye, to take our previous example, is the preservation of our sight, and so of our fitness to fend for ourselves. But we cannot be said consciously to have any aim in the matter at all. We blink because we cannot do otherwise, not because we feel it to be a wise precautionary measure. The reactions we call instinctive are mostly more complicated than this. Whether or not the reactions have been modified by experience or training, there is nearly always a wide difference between their original purpose and the conscious aim. For example, in breaking down the long prairie grass and making himself a safe and con- venient lair, the wild dog developed a conditioned instinct for turning round and round a number of times before he settled down to sleep. Although many generations have passed since his ancestors got any advantage from this practice, the ordinary domestic dog to-day, when about to lie down on a carpet or a cushion, still carries out all these move- ments as practised by the wild dogs from which he is descended. A horse, to give another example, manifests a natural or inherited fear reaction when, for the first time, he sees a large dark object by the side of the road. It may be just a tar-barrel, or a
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3