Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 28:112 (Oct 1871)
Article: Instinct
Author: John Bascom

BSac 28:112 (Oct 1871) p. 654

Instinct

Rev. John Bascom

There seem to be three forms of nervous and mental phenomena, very distinct in kind, yet easily passing into each other by slight gradations. The first form is purely a vital, nervous fact, and cannot properly be called mental. It is that by which through a nervous centre or centres the present condition and the muscular action of a living body are harmonized. Thus, in man, the lungs, heart, stomach, intestines are subject to a constant play of muscular forces, suited to the passing state of those organs by means of nervous centres, which receive, on the one hand, influences from these seatss of activity, and on the other, return to them the impulses of regular, suitable, proportionate muscular effort,

BSac 28:112 (Oct 1871) p. 655

by which their rhythmic movements are maintained and their functions discharged.

This form of nervous action is not confined to the viscera; it extends, in a greater or less degree, to all parts of the body, and maintains the voluntary muscles in that general state of tensity which keeps the body charged with life and ready for the immediate handling of the will.

A second class of nervous and mental phenomena is found in the senses, in the memory which retains and restores their impressions, and in the muscular action consequent upon them. The first harmonic effort of the nervous system, by which the constant activities of the living being are made concordant with each other, and with the changing state of each of its parts, and with the most immediate of the forces which act upon it from its environment, does not necessarily enter consciousness, and is for the most part secured in a direct, automatic, unmistakable way. The second class of nervous facts of which we are now speaking appears in consciousness, and these give us rudimentary mental phenomena. The living being is by it adapted to the less immediate and constant of its external conditions; through it, it is made cognizant of transient circumstances, and suits itself to them. We cannot definitely say how much, but certainly a great deal, can’ be accomplished with a basis of appetites, by alert, specific senses, a retentive memory, and action that follows instantly on the impulse given by these. In the first place, the special appetites are, by odor, sight, sound, set in speedy pursuit of their appropriate objects, and their search becomes increasingly skilful and successful. The memory rapidly classifies, and thus generalizes, all the experiences for weal and woe to which the living being has been hitherto subjected; and this it does in so direct, automatic a way as to give the utmost promptness to the actions it controls. The very conditions of effort suggest at once, under accumulated experience, the re...