On Animal Instinct: in its Relation to the Mind of Man. 333 



enough that consciousness and sensation may be severed fi>r a time 

 from the movements which they onliiiarilly accompany and tiiiect. 

 The success of such an experiment may teach us much on tlie details 

 of a general truth which has long ben known — that cimsciou< sensa- 

 tion inseparably connected witli the mechanism of an organic structure. 

 But it cannot in the slightest degree cliange or modify our conception 

 of what conscious sen.-ation in itsi If is. It is mechanical exactly in the 

 same sense in which we have long known it to be so — that is to say, it 

 is the result oi' life working in and through a structure wlwch has 

 been made to exhibit and embody its peculiar gifts and powers. 



Considering, now, that the body of Man is one in structure with the 

 body of all vertebrate animals — consideiing that as we rise from the 

 lowest of these to him, who is the highest, we see this same structure 

 elaborated into closer and closer likeness, until every part corresponds, 

 bone to bone, tissue to tissue, organ to organ^ — I cannot doubt that 

 Man is a machine, precisely in the same sense in which animals are 

 machines. If it is no contradiction in terms to speak of a machine 

 which has been made to feel and to see, and to hear and to desire, 

 neither need there be any contradiction in terms in speaking of a 

 machine which has been made to thiiik, and to reflect, and to reason. 

 These are, indeed, powers so much higher than the others that they 

 may be considered as different in kind. But this difference, however 

 great it may be, whether we look at it in its practical results, or as a 

 question of classification, is certainly not a difference which throws any 

 doubt upon the fact that all these higher powers are, equally with the 

 lowest, dependent on special arrangements in a material organism. It 

 seems to me that the very fact of the question being raised whether 

 Man can be called a machine in the same sense as that in which alone 

 the lower animals can properly be so described, is a proof that the 

 questioner believes the lower animals to be machines in a sense in 

 which it is not true. Such manifestations of mental attributes as they 

 display are the true and veritable mdex of powers which are really by 

 them possessed and enjoyed. The notion that, because these powers 

 depend on an organic apparatus, they are therefore not what they seem 

 to be, is a mere confusion of thought. On the other hand, when this 

 comes to be thoroughly understood, the notion that Man's peculiar 

 powers are lowered and dishonored when they are conceived to stand 

 in any similar relation to the body must be equally abandoned, as par- 

 taking of the same fallacy. If the sensations of pleasure and of pain, 

 and the more purely mental manifestations of fear and of affection, 

 have in the lower animals some inseparable connection with an organic 

 apparatus, I do not see why we should be jealous of admitting that the 



