Dr. Buchanan on the wound of the Ferret. 107 



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 reasoning, edu- 

 cation, and experience ; and it has been assumed as a character 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 animals capable of reasoning, the instinctive acts 

 are under the control of the reasoning power, and are frequently not 

 performed aright at the first, as in the case of the young Ferrets above 

 mentioned. The ultimate result, however, of the reasoning process in 

 such cases cannot be doubtful, since the bodily organization operating 

 upon the mind will admit of only one conclusion ; and hence, even in the 

 highest species of animals, these instinctive acts are always ultimately 

 performed exactly in the same way. 



The instinctive acts which excite our wonder most are such as those 

 we observe among the insect tribes, in which the intervention of reason 

 cannot be suspected, and which are, on that account, the better fitted to 

 elucidate the true nature of Instinct. But the wonder with which we regard 

 the workmanship of insects proceeds mainly from an erroneous view of the 

 directing power by which it is carried on. The honey-comb and the spider's 

 web are, without doubt, wonderful in their structure ; but they are in no 

 respect more wonderful than the elaborate structures which the microscope 

 displays to us in every tissue of animals and vegetables ; even in the 

 mathematical exactness of form, so much celebrated, they are not supe- 

 rior to the regular hexagons which form the epidermis of many plants, and 

 which we find equally regular in the same tissue of certain reptiles. Now, 

 the former structures are not held to be more wonderful than the latter, 

 because they are fabricated by the instrumentality of muscular fibres ; for 

 in that point of view we should marvel more at the latter, which are 

 fabricated by less perfect instruments — vessels and cells. The true cause 

 why the former structures have been regarded with most wonder is, that 

 it has been supposed that the action of the muscles which form them must 

 be voluntary — a supposition which implies necessarily the existence of a 

 directing mind. Now, the physiology of the present day gives no coun- 

 tenance to such a supposition. It shows us, on the contrary, innumerable 

 muscular acts in all animals, with which volition has no more to do than 

 with digestion or nutrition. Such acts may originate in external impulses 

 which excite the nervous system, and the acts follow immediately, as if 

 from a physical necessity. They may originate, also, as in the case before 

 us, in internal impulses, derived from the organic condition of the tissues 

 of the body, and the changes they are continually undergoing. The two series 

 of structures which we have brought into comparison are, therefore, to be re- 



