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



to a lower kind of class of Soul, an " ame corporelle." Descartes, 

 therefore, was not guilty of confounding the two elements of meaning 

 which are involved in the word machine — that element which attaches 

 to all human machines as consisting of dead non-sentient matter — and 

 that other element of meaning which may be legitimately attached to 

 structures which have been made, not to simulate, but really to possess 

 all the essential properties of life. "11 taut pourtant reraai-quer," says 

 Descartes, emphatically; "que je parle de la peus^e, nan de la vie, ou 

 de sentiinent." * 



The experiments quoted by Professor Huxley and by other Physi- 

 ologists, on the phenomena of vivisection, cannot alter or modify the 

 general conclusions which have long been reached on the unquestion- 

 able connection between all the functions of life and the mechanism of 

 the body. The question remains whether the ascertainment of this 

 connection in its details can alter our conceptions of what life and 

 sensation are. No light is thrown on this question by cutting out from 

 an organism certain parts of the machinery which are known to be the 

 seat of consciousness, and then finding that the animal is still capable 

 of certain movements which are usualy indicative of sensation and of 

 purpose. Surely the reasoning is bad which argues that because a 

 given movement goes on after the animal has been mutilated, this 

 movement must thei-etbre continue to possess all the same elements of 

 character which accompanied it when the animal was complete. The 

 character of purpose in one sense or another belongs to all organic 

 movements whatever — to those which are independent of conscious 

 sensation, or of the will, as well as to those which are voluntary and 

 intentional. The only difference between the two classes of movement 

 is that in the case of one of them the purpose is wholly outside the 

 animal, and that in the case of the other class of movement, the 

 animal has faculties which make it, however indirectly, a conscious 

 participant or agent in the purpose, or in some part of the purpose, to 

 be su!)served. The action of the heart in animals is as certainly 

 " purposive " in its character as the act of eating and deglution. In 

 the one the animal is wholly passive — has no sensation, no conscious- 

 ness, however dim. In the other movement the animal is an active 

 agent, is impelled to it by desires which are mental affections, and 

 receives from it the appropriate pleasure which belongs to conscious- 

 ness and sensation. These powers themselves, however, depend, each 

 of them, on certain bits and parts of the animal mechaiiism ; and if 

 these parts can be separately injured or destroyed, it is intelligible 



* OEuvreB de Descartes (Cousin), vol. x. p. 205 et seq. 



