hand
reaching out from the past, pushing him out to meet his environment, and
guiding him in the start upon his journey. This impelling and guiding
power from the past we call _instinct_. In the words of Mosso: "Instinct
is the voice of past generations reverberating like a distant echo in
the cells of the nervous system. We feel the breath, the advice, the
experience of all men, from those who lived on acorns and struggled like
wild beasts, dying naked in the forests, down to the virtue and toil of
our father, the fear and love of our mother."

THE BABE'S DEPENDENCE ON INSTINCT.--The child is born ignorant and
helpless. It has no memory, no reason, no imagination. It has never
performed a conscious act, and does not know how to begin. It must get
started, but how? It has no experience to direct it, and is unable to
understand or imitate others of its kind. It is at this point that
instinct comes to the rescue. The race has not given the child a mind
ready made--that must develop; but it has given him a ready-made nervous
system, ready to respond with the proper movements when it receives the
touch of its environment through the senses.

And this nervous system has been so trained during a limitless past that
its responses are the ones which are necessary for the welfare of its
owner. It can do a hundred things without having to wait to learn them.
Burdette says of the new-born child, "Nobody told him what to do. Nobody
taught him. He knew. Placed suddenly on the guest list of this old
caravansary, he knew his way at once to two places in it--his bedroom
and the dining-room." A thousand generations of babies had done the same
thing in the same way, and each had made it a little easier for this
particular baby to do his part without learning how.

DEFINITION OF INSTINCT.--_Instincts are the tendency to act in certain
definite ways, without previous education and without a conscious end in
view._ They are a tendency to _act_; for some movement, or motor
adjustment, is the response to an instinct. They do not require previous
_education_, for none is possible with many instinctive acts: the duck
does not have to be taught to swim or the baby to suck. They have no
conscious _end_ in view, though the result may be highly desirable.

Says James: "The cat runs after the mouse, runs or shows fight before
the dog, avoids falling from walls and trees, shuns fire and water,
etc., not because he has any notion either of life or