ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the instinctive actions which are innate and specific, i.e. that they have not to be learnt by the animal, and are characteristic of the species to which the animal belongs and not of the individual animal itself. But it is the individual, and not the species, which is the real living being, a being which grows and develops, which perceives and feels, remembers and gathers experience. And as a result of all this, the innate behaviour of an animal may change during the course of its life. The chapter summarizes these changes in the innate behaviour under the concept of "learning." First, then, there is learning based on physiological maturation. The body of the young animal changes, it grows and develops. But more interesting to us are the cases in which learning is based on psychological factors.
