An outline of psychology / [William McDougall].

  • McDougall, William, 1871-1938.
Date:
[1923]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An outline of psychology / [William McDougall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that, in the normal average child, the instinct first begins to play some part at eight or nine years of age. The Acquisitive Instinct Some of the mammals gather surplus food and hoard it in¬ stinctively. The food of the carnivora gives little scope for this tendency; but we see a rudiment of it in the behavior of the dog who buries his bone and returns after an interval to dig it up. Among those mammals which have fixed abodes and which feed on grain, nuts, and other such durable vegetable products, the tendency is wide-spread. Are we to regard such behavior as one expression of the feed¬ ing instinct ? Or should we attribute it to a distinct and separate instinct? It may be that it is an instinct in process of differ¬ entiation from the feeding instinct, and that various species illustrate stages of this differentiation. But there is an objec¬ tion to this view, namely, that a tendency of the same or similar kind is manifested by many animals that do not hoard food. The birds gather sticks, straws, hair, and moss for their nests; and they defend their nests from intruders, especially against members of their own species who, in the absence of such defense, would rob them of these gathered treasures. And, in general, animals that have any kind of lair or home are apt to resent the intrusion of other creatures; and this defensive attitude is very commonly extended to a certain area surrounding the “home”; the dictum that “his home is his castle” is true not only of the Englishman, but also of many humbler creatures. This posses¬ sive behavior seems to be instinctive. It is certainly closely allied with hoarding. Have we to do here with two separate in¬ stincts, or with two rather different expressions of one instinct ? The question, as all questions of animal instinct, is chiefly of interest in its bearing upon human nature. I am inclined to suppose that there are two distinct instincts, and that both are constituents of normal human nature. But it is so difficult to distinguish their influences in human behavior and experience that for the present we may with advantage content ourselves with the recognition of an acquisitive instinct,* and we may at-