356 Mr. French's Inquiry concerning Instinct. 



sont de toute liberte ; car c'est par l'acte seul que nous apprend 

 a. nous connoitre, que nous apprenons a vouloir librement." In 

 other words it is by the principle or power of essential intelli- 

 gence alone T which presents us intellectually to ourselves, that we 

 are enabled to will in freedom. '* Si," observes M. Cuvier in 

 continuation, " les provisions que nous voyons faire au Chien 

 etoient l'effet d'une veritable connoissance, c'est-a-dire, si la re- 

 flexion lui avoit appris tout ce qu'it auroit fallu qu'il sfit, et ce 

 qu'il ne pouvoit evidemment savoir sans elle, pour prevoir et pour 

 agir en consequence, il ne se seroit par borne a faire des pro- 

 visions de bouche, il un auroit fait pour s'abriter, pour se coucher, 

 en un mot, pour tous ses besoins ; et nous pouvons appliquer ce 

 raisonnement a tous les animaux pourvus d'instinct, et formes de 

 manieie a produire ces actions isolees dont 1'existence ne peut 

 etre concjue par nous qu' autant que nous considerons la percep- 

 tion du moi et la reflexion comme en etant les causes." 



Upon these grounds I conclude, notwithstanding appearances- 

 to the contrary, which I shall further endeavour to explain, that 

 as in the case of invariable or non-contingent, so in that of variable 

 or contingent actions, brutes do not possess any principle the 

 same in kind with that of human intelligence; that instead 

 of it, they have influent intuitive perception, analogous to 

 human intelligence and reflection : — thus that there is Variable or 

 Contingent Instinct as well as Invariable Instinct ; and that the 

 higher animals who exhibit the most perfect types of human 

 affections, are more particularly the subjects of variable or con- 

 tingent instinct, which gradually becomes less conspicuous as we 

 descend to those classes that exhibit the strongest types of human 

 thought and science ; as in the Insect tribes ; in which the con- 

 tingent operation of instinct is more rarely manifested. This 

 distinction into variable or contingent, and invariable or non- 

 contingent, it will be readily seen, is a distinction in the acts con- 

 sidered as effects or as appearances merely, and is without refer- 

 ence to the general principle of Instinctive Perception from which 

 they are performed ; and which is essentially the same, however 

 differently modified in different orders of creatures. It is by no 

 means, however, intended to be said, that the conscious principle 



