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Abstract The young science of ethology can be simply defined as the biology of behaviour. It is rather a paradox that the behaviour of animals was not, from the beginning, investigated by zoologists and biologists, just as all other life-processes were. Behaviour study was begun by psychologists and psychology is the daughter of philosophy, not of the natural sciences. The philosophical dispute between vitalistic and mechanistic psychologists did much to obscure the problems of ‘ instinctive ’ behaviour. Though a thoroughly scientific approach to these problems is clearly expressed in the writings of Charles Darwin, zoologists were slow to recognize behaviour as a subject worthy of investigation. A special tribute is due to the ornithologists, whose intense pleasure and interest in just watching birds was instrumental in re-discovering of the fact that biological approach and method can successfully be applied in the study of behaviour, exactly as Darwin had done in his book, The expression of the emotions in man and animals. What, then, are these good old Darwinian procedures?
Konrad Lorenz (Thu,) studied this question.