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Unconscious Memory by Samuel Butler
page 139 of 251 (55%)
robbed of the egg she laid in it, continued to lay a new one, which
grew smaller and smaller, till, when she had laid her twenty-ninth
egg, she was found dead upon her nest. If an instinct cannot stand
the test of self-sacrifice--if it is the simple outcome of a desire
for bodily gratification--then it is no true instinct, and is only so
called erroneously.

Instinct is not a mechanism of brain or mind implanted in living
beings by nature; for, if it were, then instinctive action without
any, even unconscious, activity of mind, and with no conception
concerning the purpose of the action, would be executed mechanically,
the purpose having been once for all thought out by Nature or
Providence, which has so organised the individual that it acts
henceforth as a purely mechanical medium. We are now dealing with a
psychical organisation as the cause instinct, as we were above
dealing with a physical. 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 the instinct. Here
first do we find instinct acting as though it were actually design
with action following at its heels, for until the arrival of the
motive, the instinct remains late and discharges no function
whatever. The motive enters by way of an idea received into the mind
through the instrumentality of the senses, and there is a constant
connection between instinct in action and all sensual images which
give information that an opportunity has arisen for attaining the
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