174 Mr. French on the nature of Instinct. 



ceptions, as respects consciousness; and it is this which must deter- 

 mine all the claims of the brute to rationality.* 



I proceed now to some practical examples. It is related in a 

 communication, from M. de Tolstoy, of particulars of a Survey of 

 the North Coast of Siberia, undertaken by Messrs. Wranguel, 

 Anjou, and Matuchkin, that — " To cross the sea, in other words 

 the ice, they made use of a sort of carriage, called nartUy drawn by 

 12 or 13 dogs. These animals were extremely serviceable to them,. 

 as well in defending them from the black and white bears and the 

 wolves, as by their astonishing intelligence ; their instinct always 

 guided them in the best track ; and when the travellers thought 

 they had gone astray, the dogs led them again into the right course. 

 The sagacity of the dogs was so great, that when they happened 

 to trace a road in the form of an angle, they made a diagonal line 

 [or took the direction of the hypothenuse instead of the sides] kt 

 returning. The travellers passed several weeks on the ice, be- 

 tween the sea and the land, sometimes upon enormous masses of 

 ice, covered with thick beds of grey snow, sometimes upon small 

 sheets, which often sank down and detached themselves from the 

 material of congelation, so that they were carried away by the 

 current and beaten about by the waves. On all these occasions 

 the dogs rendered them innumerable services. In the place* 

 where the ice was thick and without danger, they ran rapidly upon 

 the snow, barked, bit each other, and appeared indocile ; but the 

 moment the track became dangerous, they were gentle, cautious, 

 docile, v/alking frequently with the greatest precaution upon 

 pieces of ice not more than half an inch thick, and seeming to 

 advance by the order of the individual seated in the sledge." 



In the instance above quoted it seems clear that the perception 

 of the difference of distance between the line of the hypothenuse 

 and that of the sides of the angular route, as also the ideas of form 



* When we consider the principle which actuates the motion of the Polypus, 

 we are led to reflect how much inferior the consciousness of the animal must 

 jreally be, compared with that which it might well be conceived to possess 

 ■when regarded with relation to the functions performed by its tentacula, its 

 locomotion, &c. — a species of consciousness it must indeed have, but one, as to 

 its importance, bearing no adequate relation to the acts it performs. 



