31-32.] "of being initiated, not only by the perception
of objects of the kind which directly excite the innate disposition,
the natural or native excitants of the instinct, but also by ideas of
such objects, and by perceptions and by ideas of objects of other
kinds." [Footnote: "Most definitions of instincts and instinctive
actions take account only of their conative aspects... and it is a
common mistake to ignore the cognitive and affective aspects of the
instinctive mental process." Footnote _op. cit._, p. 29.]
It is only the "central part of the disposition" [Footnote: p. 34.]
says Mr. McDougall further, "that retains its specific character and
remains common to all individuals and all situations in which the
instinct is excited." The cognitive processes, and the actual bodily
movements by which the instinct achieves its end may be indefinitely
complicated. In other words, man has an instinct of fear, but what he
will fear and how he will try to escape, is determined not from birth,
but by experience.
If it were not for this variability, it would be difficult to conceive
the inordinate variety of human nature. But when you consider that all
the important tendencies of the creature, his appetites, his loves,
his hates, his curiosity, his sexual cravings, his fears, and
pugnacity, are freely attachable to all sorts of objects as stimulus,
and to all kinds of objects as gratification, the complexity of human
nature is not so inconceivable.
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