A scanning measurement instrument is capable of simultaneously achieving both higher accuracy and higher speed in autonomous scanning measurement. The instrument includes a path information holding unit for holding information about the path of the center position of a tip of a scanning probe at past tip center positions with respect to the current tip center position during autonomous scanning measurement performed with the scanning probe; a path reference direction setting unit for setting an approximate straight line direction of the path as a path reference direction; a traveling direction setting unit for setting the path reference direction as a traveling direction; a movement control unit for controlling a moving unit such that the scanning probe is moved in the traveling direction; and a normal direction setting unit for setting the normal direction of a measurement surface according to the traveling direction.