re, to
certain specific reflex actions in response to certain sensations. These
responses, from the very beginning of animal life, have been toward
avoiding pain, and toward receiving pleasure. It is as though the
stimulus presses the trigger--instinct--and the muscle responds
instantly with reflex action. This mechanism is the means of protection
and advancement, and takes largely the place of intelligence in all
animal life. It is what makes the baby suck and cry, clutch and pull,
until a sense memory is established. So instinct is really race memory.
We call instinctive those immediate, unthought reactions which are the
same with all mankind.

The pugnacious instinct--the desire to fight--is the natural reaction of
every human being of sane mind to attack. The inner necessity of
avenging is so strong in the child or man of untrained mind or soul that
he acts before he thinks. He strikes back, or shoots, or plots against
his enemies. Only rare development of spirit or the cautious warning of
reason which foresees ill consequences, or a will trained to force
control, can later make the instinct inactive.

Where instinct ends and sense memory, imitation, and desire step in is
difficult to determine. Later in life probably most of what we consider
instinctive action is simply so-called reflex action, depending on sense
memory, action learned so young that it is difficult to distinguish it
from the true reflex action, which is due only to race memory.

James, in his _Talk to Teachers_, gives us a partial list of the
instincts. Thus:

Fear Ownership Shyness
Love Constructiveness Secretiveness
Curiosity Love of approbation The ambitious impulses:
Imitation,
Emulation,
Pride,
Ambition,
Pugnacity

To this partial list we would add self-preservation, reproduction, etc.

But instincts conflict with each other, and man carries about with him
in babyhood many of them which may have been very useful to his
prehistoric ancestors, but which only complicate things for him. Fear
and curiosity urge opposite lines of conduct. Love of approbation and
shyness are opposed. Love and pugnacity are apt to be at odds. So,
gradually, as intelligence increases, the child refu