362 Mr. French's Inquiry concerning Instinct. 



and peculiar modifications ; and not by the power of reflection. 

 I can as soon conceive the action of the young Hippopotamus, 

 ■which, as related by Mr. Bingley,* leapt into the water im- 

 mediately after it was born, in order to escape the hunters, who 

 had at that instant killed its dam, to proceed from intelligence; 

 as that a Dog should, from this principle, jump into the water to 

 save his master from drowning. There is nothing to justify the 

 conclusion in the one case ahy more than in the other. But 

 because man himself would act from intelligence in such a case, 

 he is slow to believe that a similar action can be the effect of a 

 contingent instinct ; although in such cases as this of the Hippo- 

 potamus, he must have recourse to such a principle. Intelligence 

 is however included in all these acts : the question is, not as to its 

 existence ; but as to its modification, and whether it be or be not 

 the free property of the agent. 



The actions of the whole of the Brute Kingdom appear to be 

 effected by a mode of intelligence, by which the brute is uncon- 

 sciously assisted to the perception of various relations, in agree- 

 ment with his nature ; and which I have ventured to term, with 

 reference to his consciousness, — influent^ intuitive, or instinctive 

 perception. The operation from this principle is sometimes so 

 powerful, so acute, and so discriminative, as to exceed any ana- 

 logous power of the mind of man. In the instances in which this 

 takes place, it surprises by its perfection in this respect.+ This 

 however, is transient : — like the vivid meteor, it throws but a 



* Anim. Biog. vol. ii. p. 124. 



+ " Is there not," (observes Dr. Jenner, after relating several remarkable 

 instances of the power of flight in Birds,) " something as extraordinary in the 

 Pigeon, which can, in a few hours, find out its home, though taken away in a 

 box and totally excluded from the light, to the distance of two hundred miles, 

 as in that bird which quits one shore to seek another, whatever may be the 

 extent of intervening seas ? The fact seems to be, that we, the little lords of 

 the creation, are too prone to measure the sentient [perceptive, the Doctor 

 might have said,] principle in animals by the scale of our own ideas, and thus, 

 unwillingly allow them to possess faculties which may surpass our own, though 

 peculiarly appropriate to their respective natures ; but a little reflection must 

 compel us to confess, that they are endowed with discriminating powers 

 totally unknown to, and for ever unattainable by man." — Phil. Trans, for 

 1824, part I. 



