Note {283} — Chapter III · ON THE VARIATION OF INSTINCTS AND OTHER MENTAL ATTRIBUTES UNDER DOMESTICATION AND IN STATE OF NATURE; ON THE DIFFICULTIES IN THIS SUBJECT; AND ON ANALOGOUS DIFFICULTIES WITH RESPECT TO CORPOREAL STRUCTURES

«Note in original.» Give some definition of instinct, or at least give chief attributes. «In Origin, Ed. i. p. 207, vi. p. 319, Darwin refuses to define instinct.» The term instinct is often used in «a» sense which implies no more than that the animal does the action in question. Faculties and instincts may I think be imperfectly separated. The mole has the faculty of scratching burrows, and the instinct to apply it. The bird of passage has the faculty of finding its way and the instinct to put it in action at certain periods. It can hardly be said to have the faculty of knowing the time, for it can possess no means, without indeed it be some consciousness of passing sensations. Think over all habitual actions and see whether faculties and instincts can be separated. We have faculty of waking in the night, if an instinct prompted us to do something at certain hour of night or day. Savages finding their way. Wrangel’s account—probably a faculty inexplicable by the possessor. There are besides faculties “means,” as conversion of larvæ into neuters and queens. I think all this generally implied, anyhow useful. «This discussion, which does not occur in the Origin, is a first draft of that which follows in the text, p. 123.»