INSTINCT, a certain power or disposition of mind, by which, independently of all instruction or experience, without deliberation, and without having any end in view, animals are unerringly directed to do spontaneously^[1. As nothing is of greater importance in the philosophy of mind than accurate definitions, it may not be improper to observe, that throughout the whole of this article the word spontaneous is to be taken in the sense in which it is used in the following extracts from Hales’s Origin of Mankind: “Many analogical motions in animals, though I cannot call them voluntary, yet I see them spontaneous. 1 have reason to conclude, that these are not simply mechanical.' ’ “The sagacities and instincts of brutes, the spontaneousness of many of their motions, are not explicable, without supposing some active determinate power connected to and inherent in their spirits, of a higher extraction than the bare natural modification of matter.” If this be attended to, our definition of instinct will be found perfectly consonant to that which has been given by the author of Ancient Metaphysics : u Instinct,” he says, “is a determination given by Almighty Wisdom to the mind of the brute, to act in such or such a way, upon such or such an occasion, without intelligence, without knowledge of good or ill, and without knowing for what end or purpose he acts.” ] whatever is necessary for the preservation of the individual, or the continuation of the kind. Such in the human species is the instinct of sucking exerted immediately after birth; and such in the inferior creation is the instinct by which insects invariably deposit their eggs in situations most favourable for hatching and affording nourishment to their future progeny. These operations are necessary for the preservation of the individual and the continuation of the kind; but neither the infant nor the insect knows that they are necessary; they both act without having any end in view, and act uniformly without instruction and without experience.

The actions of the inferior animals are generally directed by instinct; those of man by reason. This, at least, is the case with respect to men in a state of civilization. In the savage state, they are probably little less the slaves of instinct than the brutes themselves. Concerning human instincts, indeed, philosophers differ widely in opinion; some maintaining that man is endowed with a greater number of instincts than any species of brutes, whilst others deny that in human nature there is any power or propensity at all which can properly be called instinctive.

This diversity of opinion may easily be traced to its source. There are not many original thinkers in the world. The greater part even of those who are called philosophers implicitly adopt the opinions of certain masters, whose authority they deem sufficient to supply the place of argument; and having chosen their respective guides, each maintains with zeal what his master taught, or is supposed to have taught. When Locke so successfully attacked the doctrine of innate ideas and innate principles of speculative truth, he was thought by many to have overturned at the same time all innate principles whatever; to have divested the human mind of every passion, affection, and instinct; and to have left in it nothing but the powers of sensation, memory, and intellect. Such, we are persuaded, was not his intention; nor is there any thing in his immortal work which, when interpreted with candour, appears to have such a tendency.

In our opinion, great part of the Essay on Human Understanding has been very generally misunderstood. Much of its merit, however, was soon discovered; and mankind, finding philosophy disencumbered of the barbarous jargon of the schools, and built upon a few self-evident principles, implicitly embraced every opinion advanced, or which they supposed to be advanced, by the illustrious author; especially if that opinion was contrary to any part of the scholastic system which had so long been employed to perplex the understanding, and to veil absurdity. Hence arose many philosophers of eminence, both at home and abroad, who maintained, as they imagined, upon the principles of Locke, that in the human mind there are no instincts, but that every thing which had been usually called by that name is resolvable into association and habit. This doctrine was attacked by Lord Shaftesbury, who introduced into the theory of mind, as faculties derived from nature, a sense of beauty, a sense of honour, and a sense of ridicule; and these he considered as the tests of speculative truth and moral rectitude. His Lordship’s principles were in part adopted by Mr Hutcheson of Glasgow, who published a system of moral philosophy, founded upon a sense or instinct, to which he gave the name of the moral sense ; and the undoubted merit of his work procured him many followers.

Men generally run from one extreme to another. It being now discovered, or at least supposed, that the human mind is endowed with instinctive principles of action, a sect of philosophers soon afterwards arose, who maintained with much vehemence that it is likewise endowed with instinctive principles of belief; and who built a system of metaphysics, if such it may be called, upon a number of innate, distinct, and independent senses. The rise of this sect is well known. Berkeley and Hume had adopted Locke’s doctrine respecting the origin of our ideas; and had thence deduced consequences supposed to be dangerous in themselves, but which, it was thought, could not be denied without refusing the principles from which they were inferred. The foundation of the instinctive system being thus laid, the system itself was rapidly carried to a height far beyond what seems to have been the intention of its excellent author; and reason was well nigh banished from the regions of philosophy. For such a proceeding it is not difficult to assign the cause. The instinctive scheme requires much less labour of investigation than the systems of Locke [7:12:297]and the ancients; for upon the principles of it, when carried to its utmost extent, every phenomenon in human nature is thought to be sufficiently accounted for, by supposing it the effect of a particular instinct implanted in the mind for that very purpose. Hence, in some popular works of philosophy, we have a detail of so many distinct internal senses, that it requires no small strength of memory to retain their very names. Besides the moral sense, we have the sense of beauty, the sense of deformity, the sense of honour, the hoarding sense, and a thousand others which it is needless here to mention.

This new system, which converts the philosophy of mind into mere history, or rather into a collection of facts and anecdotes, though it has made a rapid progress, is not yet universally received. It has been opposed by many speculative men, and by none with greater skill than Dr Priestley, who maintains, with the earliest admirers of Locke, that we have from nature no innate sense of truth, nor any instinctive principle of action; that even the action of sucking, in new-born infants, is to be accounted for upon principles of mechanism; and that the desire of the sexes is merely association.

Whilst men, eminent for candour as well as for science, have thus been disputing the limits between instinct and reason in the human mind, and endeavouring to ascertain the actions which result from each, two writers of name, treating of that subject, have advanced opinions, which, if admitted as just, must render the dispute henceforth ridiculous, and put an end for ever to all moral inquiries. Mr Smellie, in a work which he calls the Philosophy of Natural History, affirms that, between instinctive and rational motives, no distinction exists, but that the reasoning faculty itself is the necessary result of instinct; and Dr Reid, in his Essays on the Active Powers of Man, by attributing to instinct the action of breathing, seems to confound that principle with mere mechanism.

That reason, instinct, and mechanism, are all essentially different from one another, has hitherto been universally allowed; and it appears not to be a task of much difficulty to point out in what respect each of them differs from the other two. Actions performed with a view to accomplish a certain end are called rational actions, and the end in view is the motive to their performance. Instinctive actions have a cause, viz. the internal impulse by which they are spontaneously performed; but they cannot be said to have a motive, because they are not done with any view to consequences. Actions automatic have likewise a cause; but that cause is not internal impulse, but mere mechanism, by which they are performed without any spontaneity of the agent. Thus, a man gives charity in order to relieve a person from want; he performs a grateful action as a duty incumbent on him; and he fights for his country in order to repel its enemies. Each of these actions is performed from a motive, and therefore they are all rational actions. An infant is impelled to suck the breast, but he knows not that it is necessary for his preservation; a couple of young savages go together, for the first time, without any view to offspring, or any determinate idea of enjoyment. These actions have no motive, and therefore are not rational; but as they are performed by a spontaneous exertion of the agents, they are not to be attributed to mere mechanism; they are therefore instinctive actions. A man breathes without any motive, without any spontaneous exertion of his own, and that as well when he is asleep as when he is awake. The action of breathing, therefore, is neither rational nor instinctive, but merely automatic or mechanical. All this seems to be very plain. To talk of the motives of actions performed by instinct, in an argument intended to prove that between reason and instinct there is no difference, is either to beg the question or to pervert language. If the author of the Philosophy of Natural History chooses to call the impulse which prompts the infant to suck by the name of motive, he only uses an English word improperly; if it be his intention to affirm that such a motive is not totally and essentially different from that which prompts a man to give charity or to fight for his country, he affirms what all mankind know to be false.^[2. The author of Ancient Metaphysics, whose learned work contains much good sense on this subject, thus distinguishes between reason and instinct: “With respect to the mere animal, it is evident, that he pursues nothing but what is conducive either to the preservation of the animal life, or to the continuation of the kind. On the other hand, the object which the intellectual mind pursues, is the∕αw∙ and the handsome, and its happiness consists in the contemplation of these. And though it pursue also what is useful and profitable for the being and well-being of the animal life, yet it is for the sake, not of the animal life it≈elf, but of the t¢ 0Γ beautiful; which, therefore, is the ultimate object of its pursuit in all things. ‘ Another material difference in practice betwixt the animal and intellectual mind is, that every action of intellect procee ds from an opinion formed concerning what is good or ill, beautiful or the contrary, in the action. When we do so, we are said to act from u>w which is always determined by some opinion formed of the kind I have mentioned: whereas, when we act from mere appetite or inclination, without deliberation or opinion formed, we act as the brute does always; for he has no will, but is prompted to action by natural impulse, or i>ξμn, as the Greeks call it. A third very material difference is, that intellect, in all its operations, proposes ends, and devises means to accomplish these er * s; whereas the instinct of the brute proceeds without consideration either of ends or means.” ]

Having thus ascertained what we mean by instinct, we shall now proceed to inquire, Whether or not there be any instinctive principles in man? But in order to proceed upon sure grounds, it will be proper to consider, in the first place, such actions of the inferior animals as are generally allowed to be instinctive: for an attempt has lately been made to prove, that even these actions are the offspring of reason influenced by motives; and that instinct, as we have defined it, is a mere imaginary principle, which has no existence either in man or brute.

It has been said that caterpillars, when shaken off a tree in every direction, instantly turn round towards the trunk and climb up, though they had never formerly been on the surface of the ground. This is a striking instance of instinct. On the tree, and not upon the ground, the caterpillar finds its food. If, therefore, it did not turn and climb up the trunk it would inevitably perish; but surely the caterpillar knows not that such an exertion is necessary to its preservation; and therefore it acts not from motives, but from blind impulse. The bee and the beaver are endowed with an instinct which has the appearance of foresight. They build magazines, and fill them with provisions; but the foresight is not theirs. Neither bees nor beavers know any thing of futurity. The solitary wasp digs holes in the sand, in each of which she deposits an egg. Though she certainly knows not that an animal is to proceed from that egg, and still less, if possible, that this animal must be nourished with other animals, she collects a few small green worms, which she rolls up in a circular form, and fixes in the hole in such a manner that they cannot move. When the waspworm is hatched, it is amply stored with the food which Nature has destined for its support. The green worms are devoured in succession; and the number deposited is exactly proportioned to the time necessary for the growth and transformation of the wasp-worm into a fly; when it issues from the hole, and is capable of procuring its own nourishment. This instinct of the parent-wasp is the more remarkable, that she feeds not upon flesh herself. Birds of the same species, unless when restrained by peculiar circumstances, uniformly build their nests of the same materials, and in the same form and situation, though they inhabit[7:12:298] very different climates; and the form and situation are always suited to their nature, and calculated to afford them shelter and protection. When danger, or any other circumstance peculiar to certain countries, renders a deviation from the common form and situation of nests necessary, that deviation is made in an equal degree, and in the very same manner, by all the birds of one species; and it is never found to extend beyond the limits of the country where alone it can serve any good purpose. When removed by necessity from their eggs, birds return to them with haste and anxiety, and shift them so as to heat them equally; and it is worthy of observation, that their haste to return is always in proportion to the cold of the climate. But do birds reason, and all of the same species reason equally well, upon the nature and extent of danger, and upon the means by which it can best be avoided? Have birds any notion of equality, or do they know that heat is necessary for incubation? No. In all these operations men recognise the intentions of nature; but they are hid from the animals themselves, and therefore cannot operate upon them as motives.

Of the instinct of animals we shall give one instance more in the elegant and perspicuous language of Dr Reid. « Every manufacturing art among men,” says that able writer, “was invented by some man, improved by others, and brought to perfection by time and experience. Men lcarn to work in it by long practice, which produces a habit. The arts of men vary in every age and in every nation, and are found only in those men who have been taught them. The manufactures of animals differ from those of men in many striking particulars. No animal of the species can claim the invention; no animal ever-introduced any new improvement, or any variation from the former practice; every one of the species has equal skill from the beginning, without teaching, without experience, and without habit; every one has its art by a kind of inspiration. I do not mean that it is inspired with the principles or rules of the art, but with the ability of working in it to perfection, without any knowledge of its principles, rules, or end. The work of every animal is indeed like the works of nature, perfect in its kind, and can bear the most critical examination of the mechanic or the mathematician; of which a honeycomb is a striking instance.

“Bees, it is well known, construct their combs with small cells on both sides, fit both for holding their store of honey and for rearing their young. There are only three possible figures of the cells, which can make them all equal and similar, without any useless interstices. These are the equilateral triangle, the square, and the regular hexagon. Of the three, the hexagon is the most proper, both for convenience and strength. Bees, as if they knew this, make their cells regular hexagons., As the combs have cells on both sides, the cells may either be exactly opposite, having partition against partition, or the bottom of the cell may rest upon the partitions between the cells on the other side, which will serve as a buttress to strengthen it. The last way is the best for strength; accordingly the bottom of each cell rests against the point where three partitions meet on the other side, which gives it all the strength possible. The bottom of a cell may either be one plane, perpendicular to the side partitions; or it may be composed of several planes, meeting in a solid angle in the middle point. It is only in one of these two ways that all the cells can be similar without losing room. And, for the same intention, the planes, of which the bottom is composed, if there be more than one, must be three in number, and neither more nor fewer. It has been demonstrated, that by making the bottoms of the cells to consist of three planes meeting in a point, there is a saving of material and labour no way inconsiderable. The bees, as if acquainted with these principles of solid geometry, follow them most accurately: the bottom of each cell being composed of three planes, which make obtuse angles with the side partitions, and with one another, and meet in a point in the middle of the bottom; the three angles of this bottom being supported by three partitions on the other side of the comb, and the point of it by the common intersection of these three partitions. One instance more of the mathematical skill displayed in the structure of a honeycomb deserves to be mentioned. It is a curious mathematical problem, at what precise angle the three planes which compose the bottom of a cell ought to meet, in order to make the greatest possible saving of material and labour. This is one of those problems belonging to the higher parts of mathematics, which are called problems of maxima and minima. The celebrated Maclaurin resolved it by a fluxionary calculation, which is to be found in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, and determined precisely the angle required. Upon the most exact mensuration which the subject could admit, he afterwards found, that it is the very angle in which the three planes in the bottom of the cell of a honeycomb do actually meet.

“Shall we ask here, Who taught the bees the properties of solids, and to resolve the problems of maxima and minima ? If a honeycomb were a work of art, every man of common sense would conclude, without hesitation, that he who invented the construction must have understood the principles on which it was constructed. We need not say that bees know none of these things. They work most geometrically without any knowledge of geometry; somewhat like a child, who by turning the handle of an organ makes good music without any knowledge of music. The art is not in the child, but in him who made the organ. In like manner, when a bee makes its comb so geometrically, the geometry is not in the bee, but in that great Geometrician who made the bee, and made all things in number, weight, and measure.”

We have given a full detail of the structure of a honeycomb, because it is an effect of instinct which cannot be confounded with the operations of reason. The author of the Natural History of Animals, justly offended with that theory which treats of instinctive motives, which represents the human mind as a bundle of instincts, and of which the object seems to be to degrade mankind to the level of brutes, has very laudably exerted his endeavours to detect its weakness, and to expose it to contempt. But in avoiding one extreme, he seems to have run into the other; and whilst he maintains the rights of his own species, he almost raises the brutes to the rank of men. “It is better (he says) to share our rights with others than to be entirely deprived of them.” This is certainly true; and no good man will hesitate to prefer his theory to that of his antagonist; but we see no necessity for adopting either; the phenomena may be accounted for without degrading reason to the level of instinct, or elevating instinct to the dignity of reason.

We shall readily allow to Locke,^[3. “For if they have any ideas at all, and are not mere machines, as some would have them, we cannot deny them to have some reason. It seems as evident to me, that some of them do, in certain instances, reason, as that they have sense; but it is only in particular ideas, just as they received them from the senses. They are the best of them tied up within those narrow bounds, and have not, as I think, the faculty to enlarge them by any kind of abstraction.” (Essay on Human Understanding, book ii. chap, xi.) This is in part a just observation, and serves to account for many phenomena which later writers have derived from instinct. The author of The Philosophy of Natural History had “a cat that frequented a closet, the door of which was fastened by a common iron latch. A window was situated near the door. When the door was shut, the cat gave herself no uneasiness. As soon as she tired of her confinement, she mounted on the sole of the window, and with her paw dexterously lifted the latch and came out.” This practice, which we are told continued for years, must have been the consequence of what Locke calls reasoning in particular ideas. It could not be the effect of instinct; for instinct is adapted only to a state of nature, in which cats have neither latches to lift nor doors to open; and as it is not said that the animal attempted to lift the latches of other doors, we are not authorized to infer that this particular action was the consequence of reasoning in ideas enlarged by abstraction: the cat had repeatedly seen one door opened t∙y an exertion which she was capable of imitating. Yet that animals have no power of enlarging their ideas, is a position, of the truth of which, though it is advanced by Locke, we are by no means confident. It is well known that crows feed upon several kinds of shell-fish when within their reach; and that they contrive to break the shell by raising the fish to a great height, and letting it drop upon a stone or a rock. This may perhaps be considered as pure instinct directing the animal to the proper means of acquiring its food. But what is to be thought of the following fact, which was communicated to us by a gentleman whose veracity is unquestioned, and who, being totally unacquainted with the theories of philosophers, has of course no favourite hypothesis to support? In the spring of the year 1791, a pair of crows made their nest in a tree, of which there were several planted round his garden; and in ms morning walks he had often been amused by witnessing furious combats between them and a cat. One morning the battle raged wore fiercely than usual, till at last the cat gave way, and took shelter under a hedge, as if to wait a more favourable opportunity of retreating to the house. The crows continued for a short time to make a threatening noise; but perceiving that on the ground they could do nothing more than threaten, one of them lifted a stone from the middle of the garden, and perched with it on a tree planted in the hedge, where she sat watching the motions of the enemy of her young. As the cat crept along under the hedge, the crow accompanied her by flying from branch to branch and from tree to tree; and when at last puss ventured to quit her hiding-place, the crow, leaving the tree, and hovering over her in the air, let the stone drop from on high on her back. That the crow on this occasion reasoned is self-evident; and it seems to be little less evident, that the ideas employed in her reasoning were enlarged beyond those which she had received from her senses. By her senses, she may have perceived, that the shell of a fish is broken by a fall; but could her senses inform her, that a cat would be wounded or driven off the field by the fall of a stone? No. From the effect of the one fall preserved in her memory, she must have inferred the other by her power of reasoning. ] that some of the inferior animals seem to have perceptions of particular truths, [7:12:299]and within very narrow limits the faculty of reason; but we see no ground to suppose that their natural operations are performed with a view to consequences; and therefore cannot persuade ourselves with this historian of theirs, that these operations are the result of a train of reasoning in the mind of the animal.

He acknowledges, indeed, that their reasoning and thinking powers are remarkably deficient when compared with those of men; that they cannot take so full a review of the past, nor look forward with so penetrating an eye to the future; that they do not accumulate observation upon observation, nor add the experience of one generation to that of another; that their manners do not vary, nor their customs fluctuate like ours; and that their arts always remain the same, without degeneracy and without improvement. “The crow,” he observes, “always builds its nest in the same way; every hen treats her young with the same measure of affection; even the dog, the horse, and the sagacious elephant, seem to act rather mechanically than with design. From such hasty observations as these, it has been inferred,” he says, “that the brutes are directed in their actions by some mysterious influence, which impels them to employ their powers unintentionally in performing actions beneficial to themselves, and suitable to their nature and circumstances.”

And are these observations indeed hasty? and is this inference ill founded? To us the matter appears quite otherwise. If the arts of brutes and other animals have always remained the same without degeneracy, and without improvement; and if they be at the same time the result of reasoning, they must either be so perfect that they cannot be improved, or so imperfect that they cannot degenerate. That the structure of a honeycomb is imperfect no man has ever imagined. We have seen, that as far as we are capable of discerning the end which it is intended to serve, it is the most perfect structure possible; and, therefore, if it be the result of the reasoning of the bee, the author must retract his assertion respecting the extent of the reasoning and thinking powers of inferior animals; and instead of saying that they are remarkably deficient when compared with those of men, affirm that they are infinitely more perfect. No human art has yet arrived at such perfection as that it might not be improved; no architect has ever built a town, or constructed a magazine, which he could mathematically demonstrate to be of the very best possible form for the end intended, and so absolutely perfect as to be incapable of improvement.

But the same author proceeds to affirm, that a the laws of analogical reasoning do not justify the idea that the brutes act, on any occasion, absolutely without design.” Nay, he says, it seems more probable “that the inferior animals, even in those instances in which we cannot distinguish the motives which actuate them, or the views with which they proceed, yet act with design, and extend their views, if not a great way, yet at least a certain length forward; than that they can be upon any occasion, such as in rearing of their young, building nests, &c., actuated merely by feeling, or overruled by some mysterious influence, under which they are nothing but insensible instruments.” This last phrase is ambiguous. If by insensible instruments it be meant that the brutes are considered by the advocates for instinct as mere machines without the faculties of sensation and spontaneity, the author is combating a phantom of his own creation; for we believe an opinion so absurd is not now maintained by any man (see Brute). But if by insensible instruments be meant such instruments as act spontaneously without being conscious of the end to which their actions lead, he appears not only to be egregiously mistaken in his conjecture respecting the design of brutes, but also to have advanced an hypothesis contradictory and inconsistent.

If it be true that the inferior animals act with design, even in those instances in which we cannot distinguish their motives, their views may indeed extend but a little way when compared with infinity: but certainly they extend farther than ours; for there is no useful work of man constructed with such skill, but that, after it is finished, another man of equal education will be able to distinguish the general design of the artist. But if the inferior animals, on all occasions, act with design, we should be glad to know the design of the bees in forming the cells of their combs in the manner which we have so largely described. Do these little animals indeed know that a comb, consisting on both sides of hexagonal cells, with the bottom of each composed of several planes meeting in a certain solid angle, and so formed as that the bottom of a cell on the one side shall rest upon the partitions between the cells on the other side, is in all respects the most proper both for holding their stores of honey and for rearing their young? And do they likewise know, that its excellence arises from the precise figure and position of the cells, by which there is a very considerable saving of labour and materials, whilst the comb at the same time has the greatest possible strength, and the greatest possible capaciousness? If they know all this, and act with a view to these ends, it must indeed be confessed that bees are rational creatures, and that their thinking and reasoning powers far surpass those of men; for they have from the earliest ages made discoveries in the higher mathematics, which there is reason to believe were altogether unknown to the human race till the beginning[7:12:300] of the present century, and which at this moment are beyond the comprehension of nine-tenths of mankind in the most enlightened nation on earth. If this be a conclusion too absurd to be admitted, there is no other alternative but either to suppose that by this artificial structure of their cells the bees have some other end in view, which we cannot distinguish; or to acknowledge that they are overruled by some mysterious influence, under which they are nothing but spontaneous agents, unconscious of the end to which their operations tend. Which of these conclusions is the most rational, we will not offer such an insult to the understanding of our readers, as to suppose the meanest of them capable of entertaining a doubt. That a honeycomb is constructed with design, we must readily admit; but the design is not in the bees, but in the Creator of the bees, who directs their operations to their own good, by what the author with great propriety terms a mysterious influence.^[4. Though this way of acting is undoubtedly mysterious, “yet it should not appear extraordinary even to a man who is not a philosopher. as we see examples of it daily in our own species; for a man under the direction of another of superior understanding, will use means to accomplish an end, without having an idea of either; and indeed, in my opinion, by far the greater part of mankind are destined by God and nature to be governed in that way.” (Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii∙ p. 352.) ]

But he thinks it an unanswerable argument in support of his theory, that in the performance of those actions, in which animals are said to be guided by unerring instinct, different individuals display different modes of conduct; and in his opinion, to talk of instinctive principles which admit of improvement, and accommodate themselves to circumstances, is merely to introduce new terms into the ļanguage of philosophy; for he affirms, that no such improvement or accommodation to circumstances can ever take place without a comparison of ideas and a deduction of inferences. It is probable that the author here alludes to those animals which, in their most important operations, are known to act differently in different countries. Thus the ostrich in Senegal, where the heat is excessive, neglects her eggs during the day, but sits upon them in the night. At the Cape of Good Hope, however, where the degree of heat is less, the ostrich, like other birds, sits upon her eggs both day and night. In countries infested with monkeys, many birds, which in other climates build in bushes and clefts of trees, suspend their nests upon slender twigs, and thus elude the rapacity of their enemies.

It may be thought, that a determination of the mind of the brute to act so variously upon different occasions, can hardly be conceived without judgment or intelligence. But before our author had so confidently affirmed that such accommodation to circumstances can never take place without a comparison of ideas and a deduction of inferences, he would have done well to consider how nature acts in other organized bodies, such as the vegetable. We see that a vegetable, reared in the corner of a dark cellar, will bend itself towards the light which comes in at the window; and if it be made to grow in a flower-pot, with its head downwards, it will turn itself into the natural position of a plant. Can it be supposed, that the plant, in either case, does what it does from any judgment or opinion that it is best, and not from a necessary determination of its nature? But, further, to take the case of bodies unorganized, how shall we account for the phenomena which chemistry exhibits to us? When one body unites with another, and then, upon a third being presented to it, quits the first, and unites itself with it, shall we suppose that this preference proceeds from any predilection or opinion that it is better to cleave to the one than to the other, from any comparison of ideas or deduction of inferences? Or shall we not rather say, that it proceeds from an original law of nature impressed upon it by that Being who mediately or immediately directs every motion of every the minutest atom in the universe? And if so, why may not instinct be an original determination of the mind of the animal, of which it is part of the nature or essence to accommodate itself to certain circumstance, on which depends the preservation of the individual, or the continuation of the kind? Indeed it cannot be otherwise, if we have defined instinct properly; for no man ever supposed, that when animals work instinctively, they act for no purpose. It is only affirmed that the purpose is not known to them. It is known, however, to the Author of instinct; who knows likewise that the same purpose must in different climates be promoted by different means, and who accordingly determines the operations of animals of the same species to be different under different circumstances.

But though we cannot agree with this author when he affirms that no accommodation to circumstances can ever take place without a comparison of ideas, we readily admit that no faculty which is capable of improvement by observation and experience can in propriety of speech be termed instinct. Instinct being a positive determination given to the minds of animals by the Author of nature for certain purposes, must necessarily be perfect when viewed in connection with those purposes; and therefore to talk, as Mr Smellie does, of the improvement of instinct, is to perplex the understanding by a perversion of language. There is not, however, a doubt, but that reason may copy the works of instinct, and so far alter or improve them as to render them subservient to other purposes than those for which they were originally and instinctively performed. It was thus in all probability that man at first learned many of the most useful arts of life.

Thy arts of building from the bee receive;

Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;

Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.

But the arts thus adopted by men are no longer the works of instinct, but the operations of reason influenced by motives. This is so obviously and undeniably true, that it has compelled the author last mentioned to confess, in that very section which treats of instincts improvable by experience, that “what men or brutes learn by experience, though this experience be founded on instinct, cannot with propriety be called instinctive knowledge, but knowledge derived from experience and observation. Instinct (he says) should be limited to such actions as every individual of a species exerts without the aid either of experience or imitation.” This is a very just distinction between instinct and experience; but how to reconcile it with the fundamental principle of the author’s theory we know not. It would certainly be a very arduous task; but it is a task from which we are happily relieved, as his theory and our’s have little resemblance.

Having thus proved, we hope to the satisfaction of our readers, that there is such a principle as instinct in the inferior animals, and that it is essentially different from human reason, let us return to our own species, and inquire whether there be any occasions upon which man acts instinctively, and what these occasions are. This is a question of some difficulty, to which a complete and satisfactory answer will perhaps never be given, and to which we have not the vanity to think that such an answer will be given by us. The principle of association operates so powerfully in man, and at so early a period of life, that in many cases it seems to be impossible to distinguish the effects of habit from the operations of nature. Yet there are a few cases, immediately connected with the preservation of the individual and the propagation of the kind, in which by a little attention these things may be distinguished. We [7:12:301]have already given an instance in the sucking of a child, which we believe to be an operation performed by instinct. Dr Priestley, however, thinks differently. “The action of sucking,” says he, “I am confident, from my own observa ∙ tion is not natural, but acquired.” What observations they were which led him to this conclusion he has not told us, and we cannot imagine; but every observation which we ourselves have made, compels us to believe that an attempt to suck is natural to children. It has been observed by the author of the Philosophy of Natural History, that the instinct of sucking is not excited by any smell peculiar to the mother, to milk, or to any other substance; for that infants suck indiscriminately every thing brought into contact with their mouths. He therefore infers, that the desire of sucking is innate, and coeval with the appetite for air. The observation is certainly just; but a disciple of ŋr Priestley’s may object to the inference; for “in sucking and swallowing our food, and in many such instances, it is exceedingly probable,” says the doctor, “that the actions of the muscles are originally automatic, having been so placed by our Maker, that at first they are stimulated and contract mechanically whenever their action is requisite.” This is certainly the case with respect to the motion of the muscles in the action of breathing; and if that action be of the same kind and proceed from the very same cause with the action of sucking, and if a child never shew a desire to suck but when something is brought into contact with its mouth, Dr Priestley’s account of this operation appears to us much more satisfactory than that of the authors who attribute it to instinct.

But the actions of breathing and sucking seem to differ essentially in several particulars. They are indeed both performed by means of air; but in the former, a child for many months exerts no spontaneous effort, whilst a spontaneous effort seems to be absolutely necessary for the performance of the latter. Of this indeed we could not be certain, were it true that infants never exhibit symptoms of a wish to suck but when something is exactly in contact with their mouths; for the mere act of sucking then might well be supposed to be automatic and the effect of irritation. But this is not the case. A healthy and vigorous infant, within ten minutes of its birth, gives the plainest and most unequivocal evidence of a desire to suck, before any thing be brought into actual contact with its mouth. It stretches out its neck, and turns its head from side to side apparently in quest of something: and that the object of its pursuit is something which it may suck, every man may satisfy himself by a very convincing experiment. When an infant is thus stretching out its neck and moving its head, if any thing be made to touch any part of its face, the little creature will instantly turn to the object, and endeavour by quick alternate motions from side to side to seize it with its mouth, in the very same manner in which it always seizes the breast of its nurse, till taught by experience to distinguish objects by the sense of sight, when these alternate motions, being no longer useful, are no longer employed.- If this be not an instance of pure instinct, we know not what it is. It cannot be the result of association or mechanism; for when the stretching of the neck takes place, nothing is in contact with the child’s mouth, and no association which includes the act of sucking can have been formed. Associations of ideas are the consequences of simultaneous impressions frequently repeated; but when the child first declares, as plainly as it could do were it possessed of language, its wish to suck, it has not received a single impression with which that wish can possibly be associated.

Were Dr Priestley to weigh these facts, of the truth of which we are certain, we doubt not that his well-known candour would make him retract the assertion, that all the actions which Dr Reid and others refer to instinct, are either automatic or acquired. The greater part of those actions, as well as of the apparently instinctive principles of belief, we have no doubt are acquired; but we are persuaded that a child sucks its nurse as a bee builds its cell, by instinct; for upon no other hypothesis can we account for the spontaneous efforts exerted in both these operations; and we think it no disgrace to our species, that in some few cases we should act from the same principle with the inferior creation, as nothing seems more true than that,

Reason raise o’er instinct as we can; In this ’ tis God that works, in that ’ tis man.

We have said that, in the savage state, the sexes go together for the first time by instinct, without any view to offspring, and perhaps with no determinate idea of enjoyment. This opinion, we believe, has been generally maintained; but it is controverted by Dr Hartley. “Here,” says he, “we are to observe, first, that when a general pleasurable state is introduced, either by direct impressions or by associated influences, the organs of generation must sympathize with this general state, for the same reasons as the other parts do. They must therefore be affected with vibrations in their nerves, which rise above indifference, into the limits of pleasure, from youth, health, grateful aliment, the pleasures of imagination, ambition, and sympathy, or any other cause which diffuses grateful vibrations over the whole system. Secondly, as these organs are endued with a greater degree of sensibility than the other parts, from their make, and the peculiar structure and disposition of the nerves, whatever these be, we may expect that they should be more affected by those general pleasurable states of the nervous system than the other parts. Thirdly, the distension of the cells of the vesiculae seminales and of the sinuses of the uterus, which take place about the time of puberty, must make these organs more particularly irritable then.” His fourth observation respects a state widely different from that of nature, and therefore is nothing to the purpose: but his fifth is, that “the particular shame which regards the organs of generation, may, when considered as an associated circumstance, like other pains, be so far diminished as to fall within the limits of pleasure, and add considerably to the sum-total.”

To this excellent and able writer we may allow the truth of these observations, though some of them might certainly be controverted; and yet deny his conclusion, that “they are sufficient to account for the general desires which are observable in young persons, and that those desires are of a factitious nature.” For supposing every thing which he mentions to take place by mere mechanism and association; that the organs of generation are irritated, and certain cells and sinuses distended; the only inference which can be fairly drawn from such premises is, that at the age of puberty young men and women must, from these causes, experience certain feelings and wants which they knew not before; but surely mechanism and association cannot teach them the use of the organs of generation, or point out the only means by which their new feelings can be gratified; and therefore, as we see these means invariably pursued by all animals, rational and irrational, without experience and without instruction, we must refer the mutual desire of the sexes to a higher principle than mere mechanism and association; and that principle can be nothing but instinct.

Besides these, we think the action of eating may be attributed to instinct. It is certainly performed by a spontaneous exertion of the proper organs; and that exertion is first made at a time of life when we have no conception of the end which it serves to accomplish, and therefore cannot be influenced by motives. It must, indeed, be confessed, that the first act of chewing is performed by a child, not for the purpose of masticating food, but to quicken the operation of nature in the cutting of teeth; and perhaps it [7:12:302]may be said, that the pleasing sensation of taste, which is then first experienced, and afterwards remembered, prompts the child to continue at intervals the exertion of chewing after all his teeth are cut; so that though the act of eating is not performed with a view to the mastication of food or the nourishment of the body, it may yet be performed, not from any instinctive impulse, but merely from an early and deep-rooted association. But in answer to this it is sufficient to ask, Who taught the infant that the act of chewing will quicken the operation of nature in the cutting of teeth? Not reason, surely, nor experience; for an infant knows nothing of teeth, or the manner in which they grow; and if it be granted, that for this purpose it was originally impelled by some internal and mysterious influence to perform the action of chewing, we are not inclined to deny that the operation may be continued for other purposes, by means of association.

In human works, though laboured on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God’s, one single can its end produce, Yet serves to second too some other use.

This is sound philosophy, confirmed by observation and daily experience; but though in the works of God one principle produces many consequences, and though perhaps there is not a principle which falls under our cognizance more fruitful than that of association, yet if it be not sufficient to account for the first act of chewing, we cannot refer to it alone as to the source of that operation. Should it be said, that the gums of an infant are at the period of cutting teeth so irritable, that the moment any thing is applied to. them the jaws perform a motion merely automatic, which we mistake for the spontaneous effect of instinct, still we would ask, What prompts the child to apply every thing to its mouth? Does the irritation of the gums contract the muscles of the arm? By a bigot for mechanism this might be said, were it true that the arm of an infant, like a piece of clock-work, is always so regularly moved as to bring its hand directly into contact with its gums: but this is far from being the case; an infant makes many unsuccessful efforts to reach its mouth, and does not accomplish its purpose till after repeated trials. Perhaps it may be alleged (for when men adopt a favourite hypothesis, they will allege any thing in its support), that infants are taught to carry things to their mouths by the pleasing sensation received from the application of their nurses’ breasts, and continue the practice from habit and association. But it is certain that they do not begin this practice till teeth are forming in their gums; and then they use such things as they themselves carry to their mouths very differently from the breasts of their nurse: they constantly chew and bite their rattles, though they very seldom bite their nurses. As this practice cannot be begun from a principle of association, so it appears to us that it cannot be continued upon such a principle. Were the sensation experienced by an infant when chewing a hard substance a pleasing sensation, the remembrance of the pleasure might as a motive prompt it to repeat the operation; but it is obvious, that by pressing a gum, through which a tooth is making its way, against any thing hard, the infant must experience a painful sensation; and therefore the influence which impels it to continue this operation, must be something more powerful than pleasure or pain.

These three actions, then, by which infants suck, by which they chew their food, and by which mankind are propagated, have undeniably their origin in instinct. There may be many other human actions which derive their origin from the same source; but in a state of civil society it is very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish them from the effects of early habit.

Such, however, is the present impatience of that labour, without which effects cannot be traced to their causes, that every phenomenon in human nature, which to former philosophers would have occasioned difficulty, is now thought to be sufficiently accounted for by referring it to some instinct as its particular cause; and he who can provide himself with a sufficient number of these instincts, for the reality of which he offers no proof, seats himself in the philosopher’s chair, and dreams that he is dictating a system of science, whilst he is only retailing a collection of anecdotes. A philosopher of this school has lately carried the doctrine of instinctive principles so far, as to attribute the superiority of man over the other animals chiefly to the great number of instincts with which his mind is endowed; and amongst these he reckons not, we believe, as characteristic of our species in contradistinction to other animals, but as part of the instinctive bundle in the largeness of which our superiority consists, “the voiding of urine and excrement, sneezing, retraction of the muscles upon the application of any painful stimulus, the moving of the eyelids and other parts of the body.” These, he says, are effects of original instincts, and essential to the existence of young animals. With this writer instinct is sometimes represented as looking’ into futurity, and acting upon motives which have hitherto been considered as the province of reason and the characteristic of man: here the same instinct is confounded with irritation and mechanism; and if this mode of philosophising continue in fashion, we shall not be surprised to find men, beasts, birds, and vegetables, considered by some other writer as nothing more than different species of the same genus of beings, that are all actuated by the great and universal principle of instinct. If sneezing and the retraction of the muscles upon the application of any painful stimulus be actions of instinct, there cannot be a doubt, upon the received principles of philosophy, but that the contraction of the leaves of the sensitive plant upon the application of any stimulus proceeds likewise from instinct. Nay, a piece of leather must be endowed with instinct; for it too retracts upon the application of the painful stimulus of fire. All these are evidently similar effects produced by the same or similar causes; for in the operations of sneezing and retracting the muscles upon any painful application, there is not the least spontaneous exertion on our 1 part, no co-operation of mind more than in the contraction of the leather and the plant. With respect to the voiding of urine and excrement, it is obvious that, at first, these operations are performed without any effort of spontaneity; and that a voluntary power over the muscles which are subservient to them is very gradually acquired. Urine and excrement irritate the bladder and guts, which are supplied with branches of the same nerves that supply the abdominal muscles. But it is well known that the irritation of one branch of a nerve brings on a contraction of the muscles which are supplied by the other branches. Urine and excrement therefore are evidently expelled by the mechanical contractions of the organs of excretion; and to attribute these evacuations to instinct, is equally absurd as to say, that water or any other soft substance pent up in a vessel, and pressed equally on all sides, makes its escape by instinct through the easiest passage. It is difficult to guess what the author means by the instinctive motion of the eyelids and other parts of the body. There is a motion of the eyelids which is voluntary, and another which is involuntary. The former proceeds from some motive, to exclude too great a glare of light, or to guard the eye against a foreseen mischief, and is therefore the result of reason as distinguished from instinct: the latter is obvious· ly the effect of association, which took place in early infancy, and produced a habit. Infants for several days after birth do not wink with their eyes upon the approach of one’s hand or any other substance; but after having experienced pain from too much light, or any other thing which hurts the eye, and that pain having at first produced an [7:12:303]automatic motion of the eyelids, the motion comes in time to be so closely associated with its cause, that the very appearance of the latter produces the former. In all this there is no instinct, nor any thing which resembles instinct: in the one case, the motion of the eyelids is in the strictest sense voluntary and rational; and in the other, it is either automatic or the effect of habit.

« The love of light,” says the same writer, “is exhibited by infants at a very early period. I have remarked evident symptoms of this attachment on the third day after birth. When children are farther advanced, marks of the various passions generally appear. The passion of fear is discoverable at the age of two months. It is called forth by approaching the hand to the child’s eye, and by any sudden motion or unusual noise.” It has likewise been said, that “an infant may be put into a fright by an angry countenance, and soothed again by smiles and blandishments ;” and “that all these are cases of pure instinct.” In reply to which, we scruple not to assert with Dr Priestley, that an infant (unless by an infant be meant a child who has a good deal of experience, and of course has made many observations on the connections of things) “is absolutely incapable of terror. I am positive (says he), that no child ever shewed the least symptom of fear or apprehension till he had actually received hurts and had felt pain; and that children have no fear of any particular person or thing, but in consequence of some connection between that person or thing and the pain they have felt. If any instinct of this kind were more necessary than another, it would be the dread of fire. But every body must have observed, that infants shew no sign of any such thing; for they will as readily put their finger to the flame of a candle as to any thing else, till they have been burned. But after some painful experience of this kind, their dread of fire, though undeniably the effect of association, becomes as quick and as effectual in its operations as if it were an original instinctive principle.” We moreover do not hesitate to say, with the same great philosopher, that if it were possible always to beat and terrify a child with a placid countenance, so as never to assume that appearance but in those circumstances, and always to soothe him with what we call an angry countenance, this connection of ideas would be reversed, and we should see the child frightened with a smile, and delighted with a frown. In fact, there is no more reason to believe that a child is naturally afraid of a frown, than that he is afraid of being in the dark; and of this children certainly discover no sign, till they have either found something disagreeable to them in the dark, or have been told there is something dreadful in it.

The truth of these observations is so obvious, that we doubt not but they will carry conviction to the mind of every reader. For though it should be granted, that so early as on the third day after birth children exhibit symptoms of uneasiness upon the sudden exclusion of light, it would by no means follow that the love of light is in them instinctive. Light operates upon the eye by contact, and communicates to the infant a sensation of touch. If that sensation be pleasant, the child must necessarily feel some degree of uneasiness upon its removal, just as a full-grown man must feel uneasy upon being deprived of any positive pleasure. But is sensation, or pleasure, or the removal of pleasure, pure instinct? No, surely.

Thus difficult is it to say, in many cases, what actions have their origin in instinct, and what are merely the effects of early association. But we think it may be safely affirmed, that no action, whether of man or brute, which is deliberately performed with a view to consequences, can with any propriety be said to proceed from instinct; for such actions are the effect of reason influenced by motives. Delibera-tion and instinct are obviously incompatible. To say with the author of the Philosophy of Natural History, “that, when we are stimulated by a particular instinct, instead of instantly obeying the impulse, another instinct arises in opposition, creates hesitation, and often totally extinguishes the original motive to action,” is either to affirm what is apparently not true, or it is a gross perversion of language. Motives opposed to each other may create hesitation, and a powerful motive may counterbalance a feeble instinct; but of two or more instincts operating at the same time, and opposing each other, we have no conception. Instinct, if we choose to speak a language that is intelligible, means a certain impulse under the direction of Supreme Wisdom; and it is very little probable that such wisdom should give opposite impulses at the same instant. In the natural works of animals, which are confessedly under the influence of instinct, we perceive no symptoms of deliberation; but every one, when not interrupted by external violence, proceeds without hesitation in the direct road, to an end of which the animal itself knows nothing. The same would be the case with man were he under the guidance of instinct; and it is vain to say that the instinct of fear is daily counteracted by ambition and resentment, till it be proved that fear, ambition, and resentment, are really instincts. Of this, however, the author seems to have no doubt. Indeed, his work is so liberally stored with those principles, so useful to every man who wishes to acquire the name of a philosopher without the labour of investigation, that not only fear, ambition, and resentment, but even superstition, devotion, respect for eminent characters, avarice, hope, envy, benevolence, and sympathy, are all, in his opinion, instincts simple or modified. The origin of fear we have already seen when examining the instincts said to exhibit themselves in early infancy: let us try if we cannot trace some other individuals of this numerous family to the same source of early associations.

The case then seems to be as follows. We first perceive or suppose some real good, that is, some fitness to promote our happiness, in those things which we love or desire. Hence we annex to those things the idea of pleasure; with which they come, in time, to be so closely associated in our minds, that they cannot ever after present themselves without bringing that idea along with them. This association likewise often remains even after that which first gave rise to it is quite forgotton, or perhaps does not exist. An instance or two will make this very clear. No man can be born a lover of money; for in a state of nature money exists not: no man, therefore, can be born with our author’s instinct of avarice, directed in the manner which the most common acceptation of that word denotes. Yet how many men are there in the world, who have as strong a desire for money as if that desire were innate and instinctive; who account so much money so much happiness; and who make the mere possession of gold and silver, without any thought or design of using them, the ultimate end of all their actions? This is not because the love of money is born with them, for that is impossible; but because they first perceive a great many advantages from the possession of money, whence they conceive a pleasure in having it. Hence they desire it, endeavour to obtain it, and feel an actual pleasure in obtaining and possessing it. Then, by dropping the intermediate steps between money and happiness, they join money and happiness immediately together, and content themselves with the fantastic pleasure of having it; making that which was at first pursued only as a means, be to them an ultimate end, in which consists their happiness or misery. The same might be observed concerning the thirst after knowledge, fame, ambition, and most of the various pursuits of life. These are at first entered upon with a view to some further end, but at length become habitual exercises; with which the idea of pleasure is so closely associated, that we continue the pursuit after the reason from which it was at first begun, has entirely[7:12:304] vanished from our minds. Hence also we may account for another of our author’s modified instincts, the almost diabolical feeling of envy. Mr Locke observes, that there are some men entirely unacquainted with this passion. His observations we believe to be a just one; for most men that are used to reflection, remember the time when they were first under its influence; and though they did not, it is a thing very little likely that the beneficent Author of nature should have implanted in the human mind even the seeds of an instinct, which, in the emphatic language of The Rambler, “is mere unmixed and genuine evil.” Envy is that pain, which arises in the mind upon observing the success or prosperity of others; not however of all others indefinitely, but only of those with whom, upon some account or other, the envious person has once had a rivalship. But of such a feeling the origin is obvious; for when two or more persons are competitors for the same thing, the success of the one necessarily tends to the detriment of the other: hence the success of the one rival is in the mind of the other closely associated with pain or misery; and this association remaining after the rivalship which occasioned it has ceased, the person in whose mind envy is thus generated, always feels pain at the success of his rival even in affairs which have no relation to the original competition. Thus it is, that we are apt to envy those persons who refuse to be guided by our judgments, or persuaded by our arguments: for this is nothing else than a rivalship about the superiority of judgment; and we take a secret pride, both to let the world see, and in imagining ourselves, that in perspicuity and strength of judgment we have no superior.

Though the principle of association will be more fully explained in another place, there is one observation which must not be omitted here; it is, that we do not always, nor perhaps for the most part, make these associations ourselves, but learn them from others in very early life. We annex happiness or misery to certain things or actions, because we see it done by our parents or companions; and acquire principles of action by imitating those whom we esteem, or by being told, by those in whom we have been taught to place confidence, that such conduct will promote our happiness, and that the reverse will involve us in misery. Hence the son too often inherits both the vices and the virtues of his father as well as his estate; hence national virtues and vices, dispositions and opinions; and hence too it is, that habits formed before the period of distinct remembrance are so generally mistaken for natural instincts.

From the whole, then, of this investigation, we think ourselves warranted to conclude, that there is an essential difference between mechanism and instinct, and between both and reason; that mankind perform actions by each of these principles, and that those actions ought to be carefully distinguished, and though the human mind is unquestionably endowed with a few instincts necessary to the preservation of the individual and the propagation of the race, that by far the greater part of those actions which are commonly said to proceed from instinct are merely the effects of early habits. We are likewise of opinion, that the present fashionable mode of referring almost every phenomenon in human nature to a particular instinct as its ultimate cause, is hurtful to science, as tending to check all further inquiry; and dangerous in morals, as making people implicitly follow, as the dictates of nature and nature’s God, the absurd superstitious or impious customs of their respective countries.

Having reprinted the foregoing article, written for a former edition, as containing a pretty full view of opinions (which is one of the most useful purposes of a work of this kind) on a subject of great curiosity and interest in philosophical speculation; we cannot do better than enlarge that view, by subjoining the following admirable observations, conceived in the spirit of genuine philosophy, from Mr Stewart’s comparison between the faculties of man and those of the lower animals, in the third volume of his Philosophy of the Mind.

“That the brutes are under the more immediate guidance of Nature, while man is left, in a great degree, to regulate his own destiny by the exercise of his reason, is a fact too obvious to stand in need of illustration. In what manner, indeed, Nature operates in this instance, we are wholly ignorant; but nothing can be more certain than this, that it is not by a deliberate choice, analogous to what we experience in ourselves, that the lower animals are determined to the pursuit of particular ends; nor by any process analogous to our reason that they combine means in order to attain them.

“To that unknown, but obviously intelligent, cause which guides the operations of the brutes, we give the name of Instinct, without presuming to decide the question where this intelligence resides ;—much in the same manner in which we give the name of the letters x and y to the unknown quantities in an algebraical problem. The circumstances by which it is distinguished from reason are so remarkable, and so manifest, to the most careless observer, as to preclude, among candid inquirers, the possibility of dispute. Of these circumstances, the two following seem to be the most important: 1. The uniformity with which it proceeds in all individuals of the same species; and, 2. The unerring certainty with which it performs its office prior to all experience. In both these respects the operations of reason or art, properly so called, seem to be essentially different from any thing else that is known among animated natures; inasmuch as no two individuals of our species were ever observed to employ exactly the same combinations of means (at least where the means were at all complicated) for the attainment of the same ends; and as the capacity of reason, destitute of the aid of experience, is altogether a barren and unavailing principle.

“The disposition which some late authors have shewn to explain away the operations of instinct in man, can be accounted for only by their wish to weaken the foundations of natural religion. To speak of instincts and of original propensities, we have been told, is the language of mysticism. It is, in truth, the language of genuine science, which contents itself with a statement and generalization of facts, and stops short as soon as it arrived at the limits prescribed to human curiosity. The charge of Mysticism properly falls on those who, in attempting to conceal their ignorance from themselves or from others by means of theoretical expressions, darken the study of nature by words without knowledge.^[5. “What Sir Isaac Newton has said in justification of the word gravity, as employed in his philosophy, against the objections of those who accused him of reviving the occult qualities of the Aristotelians, may be applied equally to the word instinct, as it is used in our present argument, ζ These are manifest qualities, and their causes only are occult. And the Aristotelians give the name of occult qualities not to manifest qualities, but to such qualities only as they supposed to lie hid in bodies, and to be the unknown causes of manifest effects.’ (Newton’s Optics.) ]

“In offering these remarks, I would not be understood to disapprove of the attempts of some late authors to analyse the various operations which are commonly referred to the general principle of instinct. But I must beg leave to remind them, that how far soever we may push the analysis, we must at last arrive at some fact, no less wonderful than those we mean to explain. Thus, although it should be made to appear, that the actions which a child perforais at birth are learned by ↑X ∖ e fetus in utero, we must still admit, [7:12:305]as an ultimate fact, the existence of an original determination to a particular mode of action salutary or necessary to the animal; and all that we have accomplished is to refer the origin of this instinct to an earlier period in the history of the human mind.

“In a very curious and original work, published about thirty years ago, under the title of Zoonomia, much ingenuity has been employed, and in several instances with great success, in analyzing those phenomena which are commonly referred to instinct; more particularly in attempting to account for the wonderful efforts which the human infant is enabled to make for its own preservation the moment after its introduction to the light.^[6. “ Biographical Memoirs of Smith, Robertson, and Reid, p. 475. From the last of these Memoirs several of the following paragraphs are transcribed.” ] Thus, it is observed, that the foetus, while still in the uterus, learns to perform the operation of swallowing, and to relieve itself, by change of posture, from the irksomeness of continued rest; and, therefore (if we admit these propositions), we must conclude, that some of the actions which infants are vulgarly supposed to perform in consequence of instincts coeval with birth, are only a continuation of actions to which they are determined at an earlier period of their being. The remark is ingenious, and probably just, but it does not prove that instinct is an unphilosophical term; nor does it render the operations of the infant less mysterious than they seem to be on the common supposition. It only places these operations in a new light, and, I might perhaps venture to add, in a light more striking than they were viewed in before.

“The same author has attempted to account, in a manner somewhat similar, for the different degrees in which the young of the different animals are able, at the moment of birth, to exert their bodily powers. Thus calves and chickens are able to walk almost immediately, while the human infant, even in the most favourable situations, is six or even twelve months old before he can stand alone. For this Dr Darwin assigns two causes; Isŕ, That the young of some animals come into the world in a more complete state than those of others; the colt and lamb, for example, enjoying, in this respect, a striking advantage over the puppy and the rabbit. 2d , That the mode of walking of some animals coincides more perfectly than that of others with the previous motions of the foetus in uterο. The struggles of all animals, he observes, in the womb must resemble their manner of swimming, as by this kind of motion they can best change their attitude in water. But the swimming of the calf and of the chicken resembles their ordinary movements on the ground, which they have thus learned in part to execute while concealed from our observation; whereas the swimming of the human infant, differing totally from his manner of walking, he has no opportunity of acquiring the last of these arts till he is exposed to our view. The theory is plausible, and does honour to the author’s sagacity; but, as I observed in a former instance, it only places in a new light that provident care which Nature has taken of all her offspring in the infancy of their existence.

“Another instance may contribute towards a more ample illustration of the same subject. A lamb, not many minutes after it is dropped, proceeds to search for its nourishment in that spot where alone it is to be found, applying both its limbs and its eyes to their respective offices. The peasant observes the fact, and gives the name of instinct, or some corresponding term, to the unknown principle by which the animal is guided. On a more accurate examination of circumstances, the philosopher finds reason to conclude, that it is by the sense of smelling it is thus directed to its object. In proof of this, among other curious facts, the following has been quoted: ‘ On dissecting,’ says Galen, ‘ a goat with young, I found a brisk embryon, and having detached it from the matrix, and snatched it away before it saw its dam, I brought it into a room, where there were many vessels, some filled with wine, others with oil, some with honey, others with milk, or some other liquor, and in others there were grains and fruits. We first observed the young animal get upon its feet and walk; then it shook itself, and afterwards scratched its side with one of its feet; then we saw it smelling to every one of those things that were set in the room, and when it had smelt to them all, it drank up the milk.’^[7. Darwin, vol. i. pp. 195, 19G. ] Admitting this very beautiful story to be true, (and, for my own part, I am far from being disposed to question its probability), it only enables us to state the fact with a little more precision, in consequence of our having ascertained that it is to the sense of smelling the instinctive determination is attached. The conclusion of the peasant is not here at variance with that of the philosopher. It differs only in this, that he expresses himself in those general terms which are suited to his ignorance of the particular process by which nature in this case accomplishes her end; and if he did otherwise, he would be censurable for prejudging a question of which he is incompetent to form an accurate opinion. A person who is totally unacquainted with anatomy, may nevertheless admire (and may admire on as good grounds as Cuvier himself) the mechanism of the human hand, or of the elephant’s proboscis.

“The foregoing observations on the instincts of the new-born kid are strictly applicable to the attempts which have been made to account for the instincts of migratory birds and fishes, by changes in their sensations produced by the vicissitudes of the seasons. Of these attempts I have met with none which seem to me at all satisfactory; at the same time I have no doubt that it is by some physical means that the effect is accomplished, and I think it highly probable that new lights will be thrown on the subject by the researches of fiiture naturalists.^[8. “From some observations made by Dr Jenner, in prosecution of a suggestion thrown out by the celebrated John Hunter, it seems now to be completely established, that, in the case of migrating birds, the inciting causes of migration are certain periodical changes in the testes and ovaria of the male and female. “The fact is extremely curious, but offers no explanation whatever of the grand problem: it may account for the bird’s restlessness and desire to change its abode; but the same difficulty still recurs, and only meets us in a new form. How are we to explain the invariable flights of the bird towards a particular unknown region? For it must not be forgotten that its migrating instinct has at once a reference to a period of the season in the country which it leaves, and to that in the country for which it is bound. Of (his I have no doubt that both these ingenious authors were fully aware. (Observations on the Migration of Birds, by Edward Jenner,, Μ. D. F.R. S. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the year 1824, Part I. See also the late Mr. John banter’s Observations on certain parts of the Animal Economy.)" ] But whatever success may attend their inquiries, the provident arrangements thus made for the preservation of animals must still be referred, not to their own foresight and sagacity, but to the wisdom and beneficence of Nature; and the questions so nobly and philosophically expressed by the poet will still remain, and, we may venture to predict, will for ever remain (as to their essential import) in all their force.

‘ Who bade the stork Columbus-like explore

Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?
[7:12:306]

Who calls the council, states the certain day, Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way ?’^[9. Essay on Man. ]

The sophistry which runs through Darwin’s reasonings concerning instinct, is partly owing to the unauthorized and arbitrary meaning which he has annexed to that word.

“ ‘ By a due attention to these circumstances,’ he observes, ¢ many of the actions of young animals which, at first sight, seemed only referable to an inexplicable instinct, will appear to have been acquired, like all other animal actions that are attended with consciousness, by the repeated efforts of our muscles, under the conduct of our sensations or desires.’ ^[10. Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 189, third edition corrected, 1801. ]

“Our sensations and desires (it is to be observed) are admitted by Darwin i to constitute a part of our system, as our muscles and bones constitute another part; and hence,’ says he, i they may alike be termed natural or connate, but neither of them can properly be termed instinctive, as the word instinct, in its usual acceptation, refers only to the actions of animals. The reader,’ continues Darwin, t is intreated carefully to attend to this definition of instinctive action, lest by using the word instinct without adjoining any accurate idea to it, he may include the natural desires of love and ounger, and the natural sensations of pain and pleasure under this general term.’^[11. Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 188, third edition corrected, 1801. “Were this very arbitrary limitation of the word Instinct adopted, we should be forced to reject as improper, the employment of that term in the passage formerly quoted from Mr Smith, in which he speaks of the instinctive perception of distance from the eye in certain classes of animals. The same use of the word occurs in various other parts of his works, i There seems,’ he observes on one occasion, i to be in young children an instinctive disposition to believe whatever they are told.’ And a few pages afterwards, t The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, leading, and directing other people, seems to be the strongest of all our natural desires . It is perhaps the instinct upon which is founded the faculty of speech, the characteristical faculty of human nature.’ (Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 382, 384, sixth edition.) As an authority for the usual acceptation of a philosophical term, Mr Smith will be allowed to rank somewhat higher than Dr Darwin.” ]

“According to this explanation, the difference of opinion between Dr Darwin and his opponents is chiefly verbal; for whether we consider the actions of animals commonly referred to instinct, as the immediate result of implanted determinations, or as the result of sensations and desires which are natural or connate, they afford equally manifestations of design and wisdom in the Author of their being, inasmuch as, on both suppositions, they depend on causes either mediately or immediately subservient to the preservation of the creatures to which they belong.' On both suppositions, there is an infallible provision and preparation made by the hand of Nature for the effect which she has in view.

“I was glad to find that the same remark on this part of Darwin’s theory had been previously made by Dr Paley. ‘ I am not ignorant,’ says he, ‘ of the theory which resolves instinct into sensation. . . . Thus the incubation of eggs is accounted for by the pleasure which the bird is supposed to receive from the pressure of the smooth convex surface of the shells against the abdomen, or by the relief which the mild temperature of the egg may afford to the heat of the lower part of the body, which is observed at this time to be increased beyond its usual state. ... In this way of considering the subject, sensation supplies the place of foresight; but this is the effect of foresight on the part of the Creator. Let it be allowed, for example, that the hen is induced to brood on her eggs by the enjoyment or relief which, in the heated state of her abdomen, she experiences from the pressure of smooth round surfaces, or from the application of a temperate warmth. How comes this extraordinary heat or itching, or call it what you will, which you suppose to be the cause of the bird’s inclination, to be felt just at the time when the inclination itself is wanted, when it tallies so exactly with the internal constitution of the egg, and with the help which that constitution requires in order to bring it to maturity? In my opinion this solution, if it be accepted as to the fact, ought to increase rather than otherwise, our admiration of the contrivance.’”