OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 89 



utter moral degradation. This view of the subject, it may be added, 

 derives some weight from the allusion to it in the history of our first 

 parents, whether that history be regarded as revelation or tradition. 

 Man has no instincts to keep guard over his physical well-being ; rea- 

 son enlightened by experience, and stimulated by affection, is abun- 

 dantly sufficient for this end. But a moral instinct, indispensable for 

 the preservation of the purity of his life, and thus auxiliary to con- 

 science, is his never-failing endowment. 



Remarks and criticisms upon Mr. Bowen's views were of- 

 fered by the President, Dr. Bowditch, Professors Wyman, Par- 

 sons, Gray, and others ; — to the general purport that the 

 distinction in kind between instinct and intellect was gen- 

 erally, if not universally, admitted ; the instinct of the human 

 infant to the breast was insisted on ; also that the young of 

 animals learn to walk and use their limbs, to judge of dis- 

 tances, &c. ; and as to memory, imagination, or the power of 

 reproducing the sensible past in mental pictures, desires 

 and affections, such as were conceded to the higher brutes, 

 these are desires or affections of the mind, and, if not instinc- 

 tive, presuppose intelligence ; and, moreover, that to concede 

 to animals the power of comparison and simple judgment is to 

 concede to them intellect, — since all reasoning, according 

 to the philosophical logicians, and even perception, may be 

 analyzed into simple judgments, — thus bringing the ques- 

 tion to one concerning the degree of manifestation of intellect, 

 and as to what may be superadded to simple intellect in man. 

 To the hypothesis which denies thought to the higher brute 

 animals, was preferred the current hypothesis, that animals 

 think, but that man alone thinks that he thinks. 



Four hundred and ninetieth, meeting. 



January 8, 1861. — Monthly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The Corresponding Secretary read letters from President 

 Barnard of the University of Mississippi, Professor Whitney 

 VOL. V. 12 



