The word _thinking_, defined early in this chapter, is broadly used to
denote the sum of all the intellectual faculties. Thinking is really the
stream of thought.
CHAPTER VI
THE NORMAL MIND (Continued)
INSTINCT
We have found that the mind's chief end is action, of itself, or of its
body. But what are its incentives to action?
We see the very young baby giving evidences of an emotional life, living
in an affective, or feeling environment, leading a pleasure-pain
existence, from the first. He acts as desire indicates. But from the
very moment of his birth he performs actions with which he cannot as yet
have a sense-memory connection, because he is doing them for the first
time. How can he know how to respond to stimuli from the very beginning?
No other possible explanation offers itself than that he is born with
certain tendencies to definite action. These we call instincts--man's
provision to keep him going, as it were, till reason develops. Instincts
are handed down from all the past.
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