the true nature of Instinct. ^ 



giTing bJrth to offensive violence, are not thus exhibited so as to 

 affect the outward senses, through the medium of ferocious ani- 

 mals, in order to furnish us with the strongest possible perceptions 

 of the nature of su(;h passions in ourselves. But the creatures 

 themselves are incapable of conceiving any thing respecting the 

 nature of the moral and intellectual qualities which they thus 

 exhibit, — to them virtue and vice are nothing : they are indeed but 

 the passive mediums in which those qualities are represented and 

 illustrated, in the language of God in Nature, addressed to the 

 human mind ; and they seem to be but as types of things — of the 

 mighty powers, mora! and intellectual, which fill the mind of man, 

 who alone is an inhabitant of the moral and intellectual world, as 

 he is of the natural world. 



Man was called by the ancients a Microcosm^ or little world, — • 

 that is, a being whose moral and intellectual powers are represented 

 in the subjects of nature, the utilities and ends of which latter, 

 are reflected in him, and, as a final cause, take their rise and 

 origin from him, in the scale of creation: and judging from all 

 that has been said upon this subject, there can be little doubt, that 

 as ail nalural things are subservient as means to things moral and 

 intellectual; so the former, as much as possible, would seem to be 

 made the emblems and representatives in which the latter may be 

 contemplated. 



I have been led to offer these remarks on the final causes of lower 

 existence, because I consider that they are so connected with the 

 question of instinct, that, taken in a general point of view, they 

 help to determine what sort of limited and subservient powers the 

 brute creation may be expected, a prioriy to possess. 



The above idea it appears very necessaiy to keep in mind', to 

 prevent us from assigning to brutes, mental attributes above the 

 sphere of their comnioa nature, and as leading us to investigate 

 those causes which alone appear properly and rationally adequate 

 to the production of the wonderful system and order observable in 

 their actions. It is from failing to retain steadily in the mind's 

 view this necessary leading principle, that we are led into erroneous 

 concluiiions respecting the powers of the brute mind, and the ope- 

 rative means by which the actions of brutes are effected; which so 



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