impossible to deny that in the case of the more intellectually gifted
animals there may be such a thing as a combination of instinctive
faculty and conscious reflection. I think, however, the examples
already cited are enough to show that often where the normal and the
abnormal action springs from the same source, without any
complication with conscious deliberation, they are either both
instinctive or both deliberative. {99} Or is that which prompts the
bee to build hexagonal prisms in the middle of her comb something of
an actually distinct character from that which impels 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 from a single source, then the objection that
the modification is due to conscious knowledge will be found to be a
suicidal one later on, so far as it is directed against instinct
generally. It may be sufficient here to point out, in anticipation
of remarks that will be found in later chapters, that instinct and
the power of organic development involve the same essential
principle, though operating under different circumstances--the two
melting into one another without any definite boundary between them.
Here, then, we have conclusive proof that instinct does not depend
upon organisation of body or brain, but that, more truly, the
organisation is due to the nature and manner of the instinct.