New Essay Volume 3

Appendix 15. (1294)

[Dr. Araldi and instinct]

Araldi, a doctor and philosopher from Modena, used the word 'will' with the general meaning of an internal force that determines us to act. But he said nothing about a known end, and thus erred in his use of the word as modern physiologists do. But if his use of language was mistaken, he made no mistake about the subject under discussion. His writings, which are characterised by strict logic, show his undoubted intellectual brilliance and capacity for withstanding the prejudices of his time. He defended the existence of instinct even in human beings in a monograph entitled Del sonno e della sua ordinaria immediata cagione (vol. 1, Memorie della società medica di Bologna, 1807). The defence consists in an excellent definition of instinct, and in several facts. However, prejudice still prevents some from accepting the existence of instinct, and it will not be out of place, I think, to offer a few examples of the action of instinct even in human beings. These examples are taken from Araldi.

Note first that, if we hold the definition of instinct given above [cf. 1294], it is clear that there can be only one cause of all the first actions done by human beings before the use of reflection, that is, before the human mind has received knowledge of the good brought about by those actions. This cause, which cannot depend for its action on the knowledge of an end, is indeed instinct. With this in mind, we can now examine examples of instinctive behaviour.

Instinctive actions are those by which the foetus, finding itself in an awkward position in the womb, twists and turns to overcome its discomfort. It is clear that instinct also causes the very complicated action by which the baby, shortly after birth, sucks its first food from its mother's breast. Darwin's suggestion, after Haller, that the baby exercises at this instant the function it had learned when sucking and swallowing liquid in the amnion, is untenable. Leaving aside any argument about the nutrition of the foetus, Darwin's assertion simply offers another example of a function due to instinct, that is, according to the concept he proposed, of a function tied by nature to certain sensations which determine the foetus to act in this way.
Breathing is another instinctive action, and its commencement is described by Araldi in the following terms:

The foetus, in the act of emerging into light and surrounded by air, begins voluntarily (he means instinctively) to breathe. At that moment, it loses the characteristics and name of 'foetus' to take on those of 'baby'. The baby immediately notices its new circumstances and obeys the voice of instinct speaking to it in the language of certain sensations. One of these, a kind of discomfort experienced at the centre of the chest, is particularly noticeable. Probably the discomfort has not begun either at that moment or in the act of being born, but has already made itself felt in the womb. I am led to this fairly definite conclusion by the obvious changes which, long before birth, take place in the foetus in the special channels open to the blood, and also in the outlets through which the blood, when it reaches the heart, by-passes the lungs in great part and passes from the network of veins into the arterial aorta without going through the lungs. Without any doubt these changes can he seen in the oval aperture which becomes more restricted as birth draws near. This leads us to notice that those passages tend to become restricted, and that nature has pre-ordained total closure a long time beforehand. The restriction of these passages must cause some blockage in the circulation and with it some internal sense of discomfort, especially when pregnancy is reaching its term. This makes the foetus impatient in its prison: on the one hand, its more lively and frequent movements co-operate with other causes to arouse in the womb the contractions and exertions that herald birth; on the other hand, as it comes into the light, new sensations make it aware of the air which it draws into its chest avidly as it begins to breathe.

Sleep, according to Araldi, is also caused by instinct. This is the whole thrust of the monograph that we quote, with its appendix. Araldi's capacity for acute and subtle observation of nature is shown by his clear realisation of the reason why we do not advert to what happens within us, nor distinguish the cause from which our own actions spring.

On my part, I am sure that the whole outcome of this work of mine depends upon a single event: 'My success in making people more diffident about their observations on themselves, and persuaded that some actions (even felt, willed and known actions) take place in them without their advertence and memory. Such actions cannot, therefore, be accounted for by the persons experiencing them, either to themselves or to others.' This is why I think it necessary to show that this truth had come to the notice of great men, and was well known to them as the natural explanation of innumerable mistakes and errors. Araldi was one of these fine people, and he gives the following explanation of the confusion between instinctive actions, and either mechanical or intellective actions:

I have noticed that the willed determinations proper to instinct are normally preceded by very slight sensations which tend to disperse. As a result, the actions flowing from them are not surprisingly mistaken for necessary, mechanical reactions. This conclusion is reinforced by the supreme force of habit which sooner or later adds its influence to that of instinct, broadening and levelling, as it were, the path of reciprocal communication between the sense-organs and the organs of movement. The latter are rendered susceptible to even the slightest stimulus reaching them from the spirit. Relative to human beings we notice that actions preceded by reflection and examination or by a more or less obvious exercise of the faculty of reason, are so frequent in the course of their lives, and so powerful and dominant over their other actions, that we are easily led to think that all human actions are of this kind and that instinct should he left to the beasts.