Dr. Buchanan on the Wound of the Ferret. 379 



the lesson given it, was all the while engaged in skirmishing with 

 the other rat. Besides, the headlong fury with which the young 

 animal threw itself upon the dead body had nothing in it of the 

 caution of an experimental and intellectual act, but partook al- 

 together of the character of a blind impulse — an intense feeling 

 of bodily gratification, impelling the creature to the act which it 

 performed. 



The acts which we name instinctive, appear to me to be best 

 explained upon the hypothesis that they proceed from the 

 promptings of bodily organization. The bodily organs of animals 

 are formed in a certain way to adapt them to the performance of 

 certain acts, which acts the animals perform readily and with 

 pleasure to themselves : other acts to which their organs are not 

 adapted, they cannot perform at all, or not without a painful 

 constraint, and therefore they do not perform such acts. One 

 animal goes to sleep stretched upon the ground, finding that to 

 be the position in which there is the most complete repose of the 

 muscular system ; another supports itself on one leg, upon a spar, 

 a position which the former animal could not maintain, without 

 the most painful efforts, for more than a few seconds. That po- 

 sition, however, is admirably adapted to the organization of birds, 

 their bodies maintaining their equilibrium in perfect security, and 

 without muscular exertion, by a mechanism which Borelli has ex- 

 plained. According to the same law of the adaptation of organs 

 birds fly, fish swim, quadrupeds walk and run, and every animal 

 uses its weapons, offensive and defensive, in the way in which the 

 Author of nature meant them to be used. This physiological 

 theory of instinct seems to me more probable than that which 

 refers it to innate ideas, or any other peculiarity of mental consti- 

 tution; or than the extraordinary hypothesis of Lord Brougham*, 

 who refers all instinctive acts to the immediate inspiration of the 

 Deity — the divine mind supplying the place of reason and di- 

 recting the bodily organs. This is exactly the doctrine of Pope, 

 and with deference to so great a man, seems to me to savour 

 more of poetry than of philosophy. 



" Reason exalt o'er instinct as you can, 

 In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man." 



It is commonly said that instinct is independent of all reason- 

 ing, education and experience ; and it has been assumed as a cha- 

 racter of the instinctive acts, that they are performed as perfectly 

 at the first as at any subsequent time. This holds good only 

 among the lowest animals, whose whole actions are automatic, or 

 without any intervention of the reasoning power ; but it is so far 

 from being universally true, that it may be affirmed, that in all 



* Dissertations on Subjects connected with Natural Theology. 



2E2 



