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In accordance with the general trend in biology modern studies of animal behaviour are directed to an understanding of the ways in which organisms normally live in their natural habitats, and to establishing the means which enable them to behave as they do. This more total or 'holistic' study of the living animal in relation to its environment has now become generally known as 'ethology'. 'From the philosophical point of view, the central problem of ethology is the relation between purposiveness and directiveness, and it looks at times as if this is the same as the relation between learning and instinct.' For the ethologist the question is, 'How much, if any, of the animal's behaviour is purposive and what is the relation of this behaviour to the rest?' The problems involved are so numerous that most workers in this vast field still tend to concentrate on one line of approach, e.g. psychologists on learning, or zoologists on instincts. The outstanding merit of this book is that it is a study of the integration of acquired and innate behaviour. One of the author's major objects 'has been to point out to psychologists and learning theorists on the one hand and to zoologists and physiologists on the other how dependent each is, or ought to be, on the work and viewpoint of the other'. Moreover, the author is convinced that 'both subjective and objective concepts are necessary in the scientific study of life' and that a balanced combination of subjective and objective concepts is the only hope for a complete biology and a sound biological philosophy.
The book is divided into three parts that can be read independently. Part I, 'Some General Concepts', discusses first the relation between 'Directiveness and Purposiveness' and then 'The Nature of Drive and its Place in the Theory of Instinct'. Part II is devoted to 'Learning' from its most lowly form of 'Habituation' to the higher levels of 'Insight and Perception', concluding with a review of theories relating to '