1 58 An Inquiry respecting the true Nature of Instinct. 



intuitive or instinctive perception, which perception, superadded 

 to the instinctive desire, must constitute the instrumental means 

 of accomplishing it. Thus the Crow, (a fact, by the way, 

 which Dr. Fleming appears to have overlooked,) must have a 

 perception of there being an animal within the shell proper to 

 become its food, which perception it never could have derived 

 from any analysis of its own ; and which must therefore belong 

 to it as an influent or communicated knowledge, of the nature of 

 which it is unconscious. Instinctive Desires are most distinct 

 from those perceptions which are necessary to their fulfilment. 

 If these principles were not distinguishable, the instinctive ap- 

 petite for food, in the Human being, would infalliby be accom- 

 panied, as it is in the lower animals, with the perception of the 

 means of obtaining and masticating it. So the instinctive desire 

 of warmth does not give the Monkey a knowledge of the means of 

 perpetuating fire. " The Monkey may approach the fire which 

 the Savages have left, and warm himself at its glowing embers, 

 but he is never prompted to secure a continuance of the comfort, 

 by the addition of fresh fuel, or by setting fire to combustible 

 matter in another situation."* Neither, it might be added, does 

 the instinctive desire of warmth, or that of protection from the 

 inclemencies of weather, help the Monkey to any perception of 

 the means of making himself a coat ; although, prompted by its 

 peculiar desire, the insignificant Tinea or Clothes' Moth, acts the 

 tailor with surprising dexterity, not only in making, but in mend- 

 ing and altering likewise. The instance of the Monkey and the 

 fire shows that no proper intelligence is concerned in the per- 

 ceptions of this animal ; for how, upon such a supposition, could 

 we conclude that so sagacious a creature would fail to exercise 

 it in subservience to so potent a desire as that of warmth : — it 

 would be quite an anomaly in the character of the aniiml. The 

 Hooded Crow also, I infer, and shall proceed more fully to show, 

 does not, in its discriminations, act from conscious intelligence, 

 any more than the Monkey : but both from instinctive limited 

 perception ; which, however it may be modified according to cir- 



Philosophy of Zoology, vol. i. p. 233. 



