INSTINCT. 499 



animal is equally perfect in all its individuals ; men are distinguished 

 from each other as perfect or imperfect, according to the exercise of 

 their freedom towards good or evil. 



284. 



The phenomena thus characterised hear in animals the general name 

 of instinctive impulses, and that which urges their exercise we call 

 instinct ; in man we call them intellectual phenomena, and their 

 stimulant mind or soul. Instinct in animals, therefore, is the ana- 

 logue of the soul in man ; a soul differing only from the human soul 

 by the necessity with which it does everything, whereas the human 

 soul is independent of necessity, and freely resolves upon its actions. 

 From this necessity, with which the instinctive impulses of animals 

 act, ensues their determinate restriction in every species. The instinct 

 of every animal is enclosed within a circle, which it cannot pass, and 

 all the phenomena within this circle are repeated by every individual 

 in the same manner. In them, therefore, there is no teaching or pro- 

 gressive perfection, but the young just born individual exercises all its 

 instincts just as its mother did, without being in the least taught to do 

 so. This unconscious execution of the first occupations harmonises with 

 the desire of the infant for the mother's breast, and with its innate 

 power of suction, that we cannot forbear considering both as quite ana- 

 logous phenomena. But it is only during his nonage that man exhibits 

 himself as an animal with innate skill ; these disappear so soon as he 

 becomes older and more developed, whereas they remain with the 

 animal during its whole life. The celebrated wisdom of many animals 

 is founded solely upon the faculty by necessity present in them, and 

 what we admire is nothing more than the general law of nature, that 

 for the attainment of their object they always select the best and most 

 serviceable means. Necessity and suitableness are therefore as inse- 

 parable phenomena in the instinctive functions of animals as in the 

 physical world are the ideas of life and action ; they cannot be parted, 

 one conditionates the other ; for a necessary un suitableness would 

 destroy itself, whilst man, by the insight gained through experience 

 and custom, is led to new endeavours, upon an ascertained unsuitable- 

 ness, which at last conducts to the suitable accomplishment of his 

 object. But the animal makes no essay, what it undertakes it suc- 

 ceeds in, and indeed with the least trouble, and with the least expense 

 of force, as it seeks the easiest and surest way to its object. Yet this 



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