That Froebel not only recognized the presence of instinct in human beings, but that he also saw, as Professor Wundt puts it, that this is “determined in parts by intelligence and volition,” he states very plainly:

It is in “The First Action of a Child” that we find Froebel contrasting the instincts of the lower animals with those of man. Here curiously enough, Froebel, according to Professor Stout, is almost more correct than Professor Lloyd Morgan himself, whose statement “that animals do not perceive relations” Professor Stout regards as misleading. His correction is, “unless an artificial restriction is put on the meaning of the term relation, this statement would imply that animals cannot perceive the position of objects in space or their motion.… Hence we should say, not that the perception of relation is deficient in animals, but only that definite perception of relations is deficient which depends on comparison.”

Now it is this very point of comparison which Froebel takes as the essential intellectual difference between the animal independent from birth thanks to fully developed instinct, and the child helpless and apparently inferior at first, yet destined for progress “self-active and free.” He writes:

With this passage from “The First Action of a Child” we can compare the following from Stout’s “Analytic Psychology”:

“The peculiar feature in the life of animals which prevents progressive development is the existence of instincts which do for them what the human being must do for himself. Their inherited organization is such, that they perform the movements adapted to supply their needs on the mere occurrence of an appropriate external stimulus.… In man, a blind craving has to grope its way from darkness into light in order to become effective; in the animal the means of satisfaction are provided ready made by Nature at the outset.”

After having stated that “Every instinct is an impulse,” Professor James goes on to say that instinct depends upon the biological fact that the nervous system is “a pre-organized bundle of re-actions,” and that when impulses block one another, an animal with many impulses, and whose mind is elevated enough to discriminate, “loses the instinctive demeanour and appears to live a life of hesitation and choice, an intellectual life.”

Notwithstanding the very obvious fact that Froebel could know but little of the nervous system and its re-actions, it is still quite evident that his observation had led him to a clear recognition of the earlier stage, when “hesitation and choice” are impossible. The child, he says, “acts in obedience to an instinct which holds captive mind and body,” he is “incredibly short-sighted in his obedience to instinct.” That he also recognized the beginning of hesitation and choice is shown in his defence of the child who “in spite of abandonment to momentary impulse,” may have “an intense inner desire for goodness,” which, “if it could be appreciated in time,” would make of him a good man (E., p. 125); and also in his plea for the early awakening and training “of judgment and of that reflection which avoids so many blunders and which, in a natural way (i.e. without training), does not come to man sufficiently early.”—E., p. 79.

Froebel gives from real life a few well-chosen examples of what the boy so “incredibly short-sighted in his obedience to impulse” may do; telling how one deliberately aims a stone at a window “with earnest effort to hit it, yet without even saying to himself that if it does so, the window must be broken,” and how he “stands rooted to the spot” when this happens. Another, a “very good-hearted boy, who dearly loved and took care of pigeons, aimed at his neighbour’s pigeon on the roof, without considering that if the bullet hit it the dove must fall.” No wonder that he urges the early awakening of that reflection (Nachdenken) which would avoid so much, and in this connection it must be remembered too that Froebel emphasized the indefiniteness of human instinct which makes comparison possible. It is also worth remarking that Froebel knew that it is only by noting consequences of actual deeds that reflection comes, and this he shows in one of his quaint parallels between “the history of creation and the development of all things.”

It must have been a somewhat unorthodox view in 1826, but some pages further on Froebel speaks even more boldly of “the fall or—since the result is the same—the ascent of the mind of man from simple emotional development into the development of externally analytic and critical reason.”—E., p. 193.

Professor James goes on to state two other principles which make for non-uniformity of instinct. The first of these is that instincts are inhibited by habits, and the second that instincts are transitory.

The physiological fact of “plasticity” in which these principles are grounded, was of course quite out of Froebel’s ken. Nevertheless, the principles themselves do not escape his shrewd observation. Mr. McDougall points out that even acquired habits of thought and action, so important as springs of action in the developed human mind, are in a sense derived from and secondary to instincts. He goes on to say that “in the absence of instincts no habits could be formed,” so it is interesting to find Froebel arguing that the phenomena of habit is a proof of the existence of what in the infant he calls the impulse to activity or to self-employment.

This proof may not be quite so clear to others as it was to Froebel, but at least the passage shows the close connection in his mind between instinct—the impulse towards activity and employment—and habit, and that he had noted the interaction between the two.

There are many references to the transitory nature of at least childish impulses.

Writing of the origin of boyish faults Froebel says:

When we come to the enumeration of the various human instincts we find that Froebel can hardly be said to have omitted any that are important from an educational point of view, except perhaps the instinct of fear, and to this he would be loth to appeal.[25] Moreover, it can be shown that his explanation of certain tendencies suggests a better basis of classification than is supplied by certain recent writers, who might be expected to surpass him with ease.

Before the publication of Mr. McDougall’s “Social Psychology,” there were but few attempts at any classification of instincts within at least the reach of English readers. In July, 1900, there appeared an article in “The Pedagogical Seminary” in which Mr. Eby proposed to reconstruct the Kindergarten on the basis of natural instinct. The writer had apparently no dawning idea that this was the original basis[26] of the institution he proposes to reform, but Froebel’s account of Instinct shows in certain ways a clearer understanding of the subject than does his own.

Mr. Eby’s tabulation was:

Another classification, well known at least to teachers, is that given by Mr. Kirkpatrick in his “Fundamentals of Child Study.”[27]

His list comprises:

Interesting, helpful and suggestive as these lists are, they both serve as examples of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of any hard-and-fast lines of classification. For example, regulative instincts, which Mr. Kirkpatrick divides into moral and religious, must be derived from social instincts; gregarious instincts cannot be satisfactorily separated from instincts of self-preservation, and surely all instincts must be adaptive.

Froebel’s account of the instincts of a child in some ways resembles that of Mr. McDougall, and it is certainly in some points more enlightening than either of the others.

Under the heading of Investigation, Froebel brings both the Number Instinct, and the Interest in Stories, to which Mr. Eby gives a position as fundamental as that of the Social Instinct. The constructive instinct which Mr. Kirkpatrick brings under “Resultant and Miscellaneous,” has a very special place in Froebel’s account, as being one way of imitating, that is another mode of investigating the surroundings, and also what is equally important, a way by which the child gains a knowledge of his own power, reaches Self-Consciousness.

It is because of the emphasis Froebel continually lays upon the developing self-consciousness that his views somewhat tend to resemble those of Mr. McDougall, though it would be absurd to attempt to draw any parallel. For Froebel, though he in no way minimizes the importance of Imitation, and although it is as the apostle of Play that he is most widely known, yet, like Mr. McDougall, he never speaks either of an Instinct of Play nor of Imitation, that is, he never uses for these his special word Trieb; nor has he any Instinct for Religion. Curiously enough, too, Froebel, with his constant insistence on the threefold aspect of mind, partly forestalls Mr. McDougall’s view that “instinctive action is the outcome of a distinctly mental process, one which is incapable of being described in purely mechanical terms, … and one which, like every other mental process, has and can only be fully described in terms of the three aspects of all mental process, the cognitive, the affective, and the conative aspects.”

It is in connection with the very earliest activity that Froebel writes:

In the last sentence of this passage, which refers to the merest infant, and which immediately precedes Froebel’s comparison of human instincts with those of the lower animals, are indicated the lines on which we may say Froebel classified though he never did so formally. He deals only with the “purely” or “specifically” human, as he never tires of reiterating, so that fundamental animal instincts, self-preserving and race-preserving, such as feeding and the sexual impulse, are little noticed, and only in connection with the necessity for self-control.

But, as with Mr. McDougall much is made to depend on self-feeling, so with Froebel still more does everything centre round that self-consciousness which to him is of the very nature of man, and which is made possible by the undefined or undeveloped character of human instinct.

The instincts and impulses noted by Froebel, all, be it clearly understood, in the service of the growing self-consciousness, and self-determination are: the instinct to independent activity (der Trieb zur Frei- und Selbst-thätigkeit), the instinct to investigation (Forschungstrieb), with which Froebel deals very thoroughly and by which he explains a great deal, the impulse of acquisition, the instinct of construction or formation (Bildungstrieb Gestaltungstrieb), the social instinct and the maternal instinct.

Froebel himself never tabulates, yet his apparently careful use of the word Trieb, taken along with his convincing explanations of various tendencies (Richtungen, Neigungen, Streben) seems to show that in relation to instinct there were in his mind two pairs of ideas, so closely related as to be inseparable, viz.:

(a) Investigation and Control of Surroundings, and (b) Consciousness of Self and Self-Determination.

It is impossible to become conscious of one’s self except by becoming conscious of a world of objects.[28] It is equally impossible to become self-determining without gaining control over these objects, over the surroundings. In order to control the surroundings, one must first investigate them, and this investigation brings with it self-consciousness, knowledge of one’s own powers and consequent self-determination. All this seems fully in accordance with what has been already stated as to the close connection between volitional and intellectual development.

The two main lines on which instinctive action must run, if it is to be, as it must be, adaptive, are given in Froebel’s words, “to have power and understanding.” To adapt ourselves to our surroundings we must first know them, and secondly, have power over them. Even this separation into firstly and secondly is more a matter of words than of reality. No one knew more clearly or emphasized more strongly than Froebel that action, by which alone we gain power, is also the child’s royal road to knowledge. This he states very plainly in the “Plan” which he drew up for the school at Helba, which unfortunately never came into existence.

Knowledge of his surroundings is however not the only knowledge that the child gains through action; this is his only way of gaining knowledge of himself, of his power and of his weakness. It is through outward activity that, as Froebel says, he “comes to self-consciousness and learns to order, determine and master himself,” and it is in connection with the earliest Impulse to Activity that Froebel writes:

It may seem very presumptuous to venture to discuss here the classification of instincts adopted by Mr. McDougall, yet there are in it a few points which would not have appealed to Froebel, and it is conceivable that Mr. McDougall might make alterations in a future edition and attach even more importance to positive self-feeling as Froebel would undoubtedly have done. It is impossible to imagine Froebel having any dealings with an Instinct of Self-Abasement, though the Instinct of Self-Assertion is in full accordance with his ideas. And while it is hard to see the biological utility of an Instinct of Self-Abasement, it does seem as if the frustration of the Instinct of Self-Assertion might be made to cover all that is brought under its opposite.

It is difficult, too, to imagine Froebel allowing an Instinct of Pugnacity, and Mr. McDougall allows that this presupposes the other instincts, and that it cannot strictly be brought under his own definition of instinct. He allows, too, that this instinct is “lacking in the constitution of the females of some species,” and it seems impossible not to notice the difference between little boys and girls in this respect. Surely it puts too much to the credit of mere pugnacity to say: “A man devoid of the pugnacious instinct would not only be incapable of anger, but would lack this great source of reserve energy, which is called into play in most of us by any difficulty in our path.”[29] The Instinct of Self-Assertion, if it is worth anything, ought to be sufficient not only to produce anger,[30] but also to call up reserve energy to deal with difficulties. Certainly Froebel would have said so. No doubt it is because of her weaker physique that the woman has not the pugnacity of the man, but Froebel too wrote mainly of the boy, and he puts boyish tussling and fighting down to the instinctive desire to measure and to increase power and this can easily be matched on the female side, though the power measured may not be that of muscle.

In passing, it may be suggested that it hardly seems worth while to postulate an Instinct of Repulsion with the impulses or actions of rejecting evil-tasting substances from the mouth and of shrinking from objects which are slimy or slippery. Surely the rejection of unsuitable food might be a compound reflex action tending to the preservation of health; while shrinking from slimy objects, and even from the touch of fur, might have had their uses in the case of children left in caves, and might be drawn under the instinct of fear.

There does not seem to be anything to which Mr. McDougall would take exception in what Froebel has to say about Play or about Imitation.

As to play, Froebel must be regarded as a pioneer in the attempt to explain a subject all important to educators, and by his explanation certain kinds, and notably imitative play find an appropriate place under his instinct of investigation (Forschungstrieb).

As the word Investigation certainly implies activity, it may be permissible to wonder why Mr. McDougall has not made use of the terms “The Instinct of Investigation and the Emotion of Curiosity,” the more so that he himself has clearly a strong inclination to use the word curiosity to express emotion.[31]

Imitation, as we have seen,[32] is, according to Froebel, action which renders a child conscious of what is around him, conscious of his inner life of perceptions, ideas and feelings, conscious of his own power. Froebel also points out that imitation, as well as habit, is the outcome of a more fundamental impulse to activity.

Mr. McDougall notes “at least three distinct classes” of imitative actions. The first class consists of expressive actions, secondary to the sympathetic induction of the emotions they express, as when a child responds to a smile with a smile, and here we remember how Froebel notes the child’s first smile to his mother as the earliest sign of what he calls “the feeling of community.” The third class is the deliberate and voluntary imitation of an admired person, which does not concern us here. The second class are “simple ideo-motor actions evoked by the visual presentation of a movement,” and as a parallel to this we have Froebel’s “working of the inner activity wakened by the sight of outer activity.”

A point to which exception may well be taken is that in the infant Froebel notes what he seems to regard as a fundamental tendency, the impulse or instinct of activity, or as he frequently puts it, the impulse to busy oneself, which, however, soon differentiates into two more specific tendencies, viz. the impulse to investigate and the constructive impulse.

It may be worth mentioning that Groos would like to assume a “universal impulse to activity,” and though he “can only hold fast to the primal need for activity,” yet according to him Ribot approaches this assumption.—(“The Play of Man,” p. 3).

Even in the infant, however, this instinct or impulse to activity is devoted to “penetrating what is outer,” and the Kindergarten, meant for children from three to six, is intended to foster the three instincts, activity, investigation and construction, as well as to cultivate the social instinct by placing a little child among his equals. Froebel describes it in his plan as:

As regards the child, the word Trieb, which is exactly equal to impulse, seems to be applied only in one other direction, to what we would call the social instinct, and here again Froebel shows his recognition of the vagueness and indefiniteness of early consciousness. As he attributes to the infant the one impulse to activity which differentiates later into Investigation and Construction, so in the infant he recognizes a “feeling of community” (Gesammtgefühl), but says that it differentiates later into something more definite.[33]

Under the important Instinct of Investigation, or the Instinct for Self-Instruction, Froebel includes a great deal. Many different activities until recently somewhat carelessly talked of collectively as “play,” Froebel has separated and explained as the child’s way of investigating his surroundings. Even “the earliest activity and first action of the child,” Froebel says, shows “the instinct to self-teaching and self-instruction.”

Imitative action or imitative play is always referred to as action which helps towards understanding of the surroundings. In the “Mother Songs” we read:

Representation, however, may be carried out in many ways, by the use of material, as well as by bodily action so that the constructive instinct also subserves that of investigation.

Here Froebel has plainly stated the main object of his specially selected play-material. The ordinary parent not being “the man advanced in insight,” who “makes clear to himself the purpose of playthings,” Froebel often saw children supplied with expensive but unsuitable toys, toys which would not bring the child any nearer his destination, “to have power and understanding, to become ever more and more self-conscious and self-determining.”

As the child grows older his constructions advance, but still they connect themselves with investigating:

Investigating naturally leads to exploring, “external objects invite him who would bring them nearer to move toward them,” and so the child once he is able to stand begins to travel:

The boy has lost none of this tendency to explore, but he goes further afield, and it is worth noting that because the boy has a distinct purpose in view his exploring is distinctly called work.

Even the baby shows trace of the collecting or acquiring instinct, but to Froebel this still falls under the head of investigation. The child who has just learned to walk is: