The instincts of the collective unconscious form the substrate of this assimilative system.  They are repositories of ancestral experience, of all the experience which man, as a species, has had of the world.  Their 'field' is Nature, the external world of objects, including the human collective and man himself as an assimilative-reactive, psychophysical unit.  That is to say, there is in the collective psyche of man, as in all animals, but modified according to species, a layer built up of man's specifically human, instinctive reactions to his natural environment.  A further layer contains group instincts, namely experiences of the specifically human environment, of the collective, race, tribe, group, etc.  This layer covers herd instincts, specific group reactions which distinguish a particular race or people from others, and all differentiated relationships to the nonego.  A final layer is formed by instinctive reactions to the psychophysical organism and its modifications.  For example hunger, hormone constellations, etc., are answered by instinctive reactions.  All these layers intercommunicate.  Their common factor is that the reactions are purely instinctive, the psychophysical unit reacting as a whole by means of meaningful acts which are not the outcome of individual experience, but of ancestral experience, and which are performed without the participation of consciousness.

• collective
• collective unconscious
• instinct
• animals
• nature
• experience
• consciousness
• unconscious
• environment
• relationships
• psyche