He jumps up on the rail of the yacht with no one around, running completely on instinct (Connell, 1924). Taking time to reason this out would have told him that he could fall and, since he was the only person on deck at that time of night, that no one would be around to see that he had fallen and rescue him. His instinct also took over when he dropped his pipe while standing on the rail (Connell, 1924). Reaching for the pipe was pure instinct. When a person drops something, more often than not he or she reaches for the dropped object in an effort to catch it (Carlson & Heth, 2009; Gray, 2011). While that makes complete sense from an instinctual standpoint, reason would say that Rainsford was putting himself far too much at risk because he was leaning out over an open ocean with no one around....
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