MS 1343 (1902) - Of the Classification of the Sciences

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then is no human purpose, there must be some agency, such as natural selection, for example, which acts like a purpose; or else no natural classification is possible. If we do not know what this agency is, or only know it in a general way, we may nevertheless by close study of large bodies of fact be able, with more or less approach to accuracy, to determine where the exigencies of this quasi-purpose have caused the lines of demarcation to be drawn between the different classes.

It is, however, a general rule that natural classes, as just defined, are apt to merge into one another, so that it is impossible to say in every case whether a given individual belongs to one or to another; or, at any rate, if this can be ascertained it will only be by the aid of inessential characters. This is susceptible of mathematical demonstration; and it can also be copiously exemplified by instances drawn from artificial objects whose natural classification is

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and that it is not in fact distinct instincts that are acting under the diverse circumstances. We are obliged to allow our decision of the question to be governed by such good sense as we can bring to its solution. This decision of good sense will itself be an instinctive judgment. It will be far safer to be guided by that than to have no guide; but at the same time we shall have to expect frequent mistakes.

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and that it is not, in fact, a group of distinct and un

[various terms]

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with almost all the others.

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as affording types of instinct have any instinct according to the trio's definition. It will be far better to class as instinctive all action that is at once conscious, animated by a quasi-purpose, and passing in part definitely beyond all possibility of control; since with reference to natural classification no characters can be more significant than these three. If the reader is at a loss to understand how knowledge can under this definition be instinctive, it can only be that he forgets that thought is essentially of the nature of action. It is a capital mistake to suppose that one can be immediately conscious of thought. Immediate consciousness is nothing but feeling. But this feeling is incessantly shifting kaleidescope-fashion; and when it shifts I experience either an effort to bring about the metamorphosis against a resisting inertia or else that the transformation comes, will I, will I. Hence the prominence