stinct, 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: 1st, The uniformity with which it proceeds in all individuals of the same species; and, 2d, The unerring certainty with which it performs its office prior to all experience. In both these respects the operations of reason or of 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. Agreeably to this last observation, art is defined by Lord Bacon very justly, though somewhat diffusely, to be "a proper "disposal of the things of nature by human thought and ex"perience, so as to make them answer the designs and uses of "mankind." It may be defined more concisely to be the adjustment of means to accomplish a desired end. According to this idea of art, it is necessarily the result of reason and invention; and it also necessarily presupposes experience and observation, without which it is impossible for the greatest ingenuity to form one single conclusion concerning the order of the universe, or the means to be employed for producing any conceivable effect, whether physical or moral. In endeavouring thus to draw a line of distinction between the operations of reason and those of instinct, I would not be understood to refer all the actions of man to the one principle, and all those of the brutes to the other. On the contrary, it will afterwards appear that the instincts of the brutes are susceptible of important modifications from the influence of external circumstances, and the accidental experience of the individual animal. And, on the other hand, nothing can be more manifest, than that, in our species, there are many natural propensities which seem to be perfectly analogous to instinct, in their laws and in their origin. Thus an infant, the moment it is brought into the world, performs, with the most perfect success, the function of respiration; a function which requires the alternate contraction and relaxation of certain muscles in a regular order and succession. The infant has certainly no idea that breathing is necessary to life, nor any knowledge of the means by which that end is accomplished. It is in a similar way that a new born child performs the operations of suction and swallowing. Anatomists describe about thirty pairs of muscles that must be employed in every draught. Who puts these muscles into action, and regulates the order in which they are exerted? We may venture to say with confidence, that, in so far as this operation indicates design and reason, they are not the design and reason of the infant. If these facts are attentively considered, we may be more easily disposed to admit that instinctive proneness to the interpretation of natural signs, and that instinctive facility in comprehending their meaning, which I formerly ventured to ascribe to our species. Some modern philosophers have attempted to resolve the whole of this process into experience and observation; and to maintain that we learn to interpret natural signs exactly in the same manner in which we learn the meaning of conventional speech. To this doctrine I am not disposed in the least to object, so far as it rests on facts. On the contrary, it appears to me reasonable and philosophical to push it. as far as these authorize us to go; for numberless examples show that Nature has done no more for man than was necessary for his preservation, leaving him to make many acquisitions for himself, which she has imparted immediately to the brutes.t * Ried's Essays on the Active Powers of Man, p. 103. Quarto Edition. † A remarkable and indisputable instance of this occurs in that instinctive perception of distance from the eye, which in many tribes of the brutes is connate with their birth; compared with what is known to take place in our own species. The very ingenious and acute Dr. Campbell, indeed, was led by analogy to think it probable, that their perceptions in this case were similar to our own. "There "is some ground to think" (he observes)" from the exact analogy which the organs of brutes bear to ours, that the discovery of distance from the eye is at"tained by them in the same manner as by us. As to this, however, I will not "be positive."-Philosophy of Rhetoric, Vol. I. p. 135. In the Essay upon the external senses, published in the posthumous Essays of Mr. Adam Smith, it is shown, in a most satisfactory manner, how completely the argument from analogy fails in this instance. "That, antecedent to all experience, the young of at least the greater part of "animals possess some instinctive perception of this kind, seems abundantly evi"dent. The hen never feeds her young by dropping the food into their bills, as "the linnet and the thrush feed theirs. Almost as soon as her chickens are hatch"ed, she does not feed them, but carries them to the field to feed, where they "walk about at their ease, it would seem, and appear to have the most distinct perception of all the tangible objects which surround them. We may often see "them, accordingly, by the straightest road, run to and pick up any little grains "which she shows them, even at the distance of several yards; and they no sooner come into the light than they seem to understand the language of vision as "well as they ever do afterwards. The young of the partridge and of the grouse My own idea is, as I have said on a different occasion that both instinct and experience are here concerned, and that the share which belongs to each in producing the result can be ascertained by an appeal to facts alone. To object to this conclusion as unphilosophical, merely because it refers the phenomenon in part to a cause of which we know nothing but from its effects, is to betray a presumptuous confidence in the powers of human reason, which accords but ill with the narrow limits assigned to it in such abstruse researches. Abstracting from this particular class of phenomena, numberless other operations of our species are no less wonderful; or, granting that man learns every thing by experience, what shall we say to those operations of the brutes which are uniform in every individual of the same tribe, and as perfect at first as after a thousand trials! But why should we have recourse in this argument to the instincts of the brutes, or to those operations of our own species which passed in a period of which we have no recollection? Can any thing, in what is commonly called instinct, be more mysterious than the means by which the voluntary motions of the body are accomplished? I will to move my hand or my foot, and the end is instantly brought about. I learn from physiologists, that, for this purpose, certain muscles must be exerted, and that the contraction of these muscles is produced by the influence of the nerves, But in performing the * "seem to have, at the same early period, the most distinct perceptions of the same "kind. The young partridge, almost as soon as it comes from the shell, runs "about among long grass and corn; the young grouse among long heath, and "would both most essentially hurt themselves if they had not the most acute, as "well as distinct perception of the tangible objects which not only surround them, "but press upon them on all sides. This is the case, too, with the young of the "" goose, of the duck, and, as far as I have been able to observe, with those of at "least the greater part of the birds which make their nests upon the ground; with "the greater part of those which are ranked by Linnæus in the orders of the hen " and the goose, and of many of those long shanked and wading birds which he "places in the order that he distinguishes by the name of Gralla." * * "The young of several sorts of quadrupeds seem, like those of the greater part "of birds which make their nests upon the ground, to enjoy, as soon as they "come into the world, the faculty of seeing as completely as they ever do after"wards. The day, or the day after they are dropt, the calf follows the cow, and "the foal the mare, to the field; and though from timidity they seldom remove "far from the mother, yet they seem to walk about at their ease; which they “could not do unless they could distinguish, with some degree of precision, the "shape and proportion of the tangible objects which each visible one represents." -Smith's Posthumous Essays, pp. 233, 234, 235. With these remarks of Mr. Smith's, the ingenious observations upon instinct, in a late publication of M. Fred. Cuvier, coincide exactly. (See note E. Not many years ago, physiologists professed to know a great deal more on this subject. The following is an extract from a very learned and ingenious author who wrote in 1775; and yet already it is impossible to read it without a smile action, I think neither of nerves nor mi the end; and the machinery immediately arranged and exerted WISH E my part of which I am consecus. The only difference between these ti operations of instinet, is that ea and are ignorant of the mass enamel In the latter, we have no momento e The disposition with some are a ful plain away the operations if using : for only by their wish to volunt dis ligion. To speak cổ lost team: a have been told, is the at the language of genuine stat statement and geben as it is arrived at the charge of Mysteem progeny dels is 2 at the confidence and mea 66 pent asses car to fi rea "leuses. Le sont came.. My own idea is, as I have said on a different occasion that both instinct and experience are here concerned, and that the share which belongs to each in producing the result can be ascertained by an appeal to facts alone. To object to this conclusion as unphilosophical, merely because it refers the phenomenon in part to a cause of which we know nothing but from its effects, is to betray a presumptuous confidence in the powers of human reason, which accords but ill with the narrow limits assigned to it in such abstruse researches. Abstracting from this particular class of phenomena, numberless other operations of our species are no less wonderful; or, granting that man learns every thing by experience, what shall we say to those operations of the brutes which are uniform in every individual of the same tribe, and as perfect at first as after a thousand trials! But why should we have recourse in this argument to the instincts of the brutes, or to those operations of our own species which passed in a period of which we have no recollection? Can any thing, in what is commonly called instinct, be more mysterious than the means by which the voluntary motions of the body are accomplished? I will to move my hand or my foot, and the end is instantly brought about. I learn from physiologists, that, for this purpose, certain muscles must be exerted, and that the contraction of these muscles is produced by the influence of the nerves. But in performing the * "seem to have, at the same early period, the most distinct perceptions of the same "kind. The young partridge, almost as soon as it comes from the shell, runs "about among long grass and corn; the young grouse among long heath, and "would both most essentially hurt themselves if they had not the most acute, as "well as distinct perception of the tangible objects which not only surround them, "but press upon them on all sides. This is the case, too, with the young of the goose, of the duck, and, as far as I have been able to observe, with those of at "least the greater part of the birds which make their nests upon the ground; with "the greater part of those which are ranked by Linnæus in the orders of the hen " and the goose, and of many of those long shanked and wading birds which he "places in the order that he distinguishes by the name of Gralle." * and "The young of several sorts of quadrupeds seem, like those of the greater part "of birds which make their nests upon the ground, to enjoy, as soon as they "come into the world, the faculty of seeing as completely as they ever do after"wards. The day, or the day after they are dropt, the calf follows the cow, "the foal the mare, to the field; and though from timidity they seldom remove "far from the mother, yet they seem to walk about at their ease; which they "could not do unless they could distinguish, with some degree of precision, the shape and proportion of the tangible objects which each visible one represents." -Smith's Posthumous Essays, pp. 233, 234, 235. With these remarks of Mr. Smith's, the ingenious observations upon instinct, in a late publication of M. Fred. Cuvier, coincide exactly.-(See note E. Not many years ago, physiologists professed to know a great deal more on this subject. The following is an extract from a very learned and ingenious au thor who wrote in 1775; and yet already it is impossible to read it without a smile |