Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/73

 § 5. Instinctive Behaviour and Moral Conduct. The simpler instincts tend to secure, at least at first, merely the physical safety of the individual to whom they belong. The animal's instincts are all directed to self-preservation. At a very early date the chick's instincts render it capable of taking care of itself. Its instincts end, as they began, in the tendency to self-preservation and the preservation of the race. The child's instincts are not so entirely self-preservative: they do not need to be so wholly directed to self-preservation. Its parents look after it for a relatively long period. Thus the child's instincts may be developed and moralised and extended to contribute to more comprehensive ends. They tend not merely to self-preservation, but to the realisation of all the capacities of the child, mental and moral as well as physical. As the child rises above the merely instinctive level, and develops conscious purposes, he comes to will his actions, and his behaviour becomes conduct. Instead of instinctively acting merely with a view to self-preservation, he forms definite purposes, directed to the complete realisation of his powers. His instinctive modes of behaviour are organised and developed to contribute to the comprehensive ends which he sets before himself as those which it is his duty to achieve in fulfilling his vocation. All that this gradual process of moralisation and organisation involves will be explained in subsequent chapters.

For further reading: G. F. Stout: Manual of Psychology, bk. iii. pt. i. ch. i.; W. M'Dougall: Social Psychology, ch. ii., iii., x.-xiv.; C. Lloyd Morgan: Instinct and Experience, ch. i.-iv.