8 M. Flourens's Historical Eloge on 



which is constant and irresistible. Every thing in intelligence 

 results from experience and instruction : the dog obeys only 

 because he has been taught ; and all is free, for the dog obeys, 

 because he so wills it. Finally, in instinct every thing is par- 

 ticular : the industry we so much admire in the beaver while 

 constructing his hut, can be exercised by him only in building 

 his hut : whilst in intelligence every thing is general ; for this 

 same flexibility of attention and conception which the dog ex- 

 ercises in obeying, he can exercise in the performance of any 

 other task. 



There is therefore in animals two distinct and primitive 

 powers — instinct and intelligence. So long as these two powers 

 continued to be confounded, every thing in the actions of ani- 

 mals was obscure and contradictory. Among these actions 

 some exhibited man as in every respect superior to the brute, 

 and others again appeared to lead to the very opposite conclu- 

 sion. This was a contradiction as deplorable as it was absurd. 

 By the distinction which separates blind and necessary actions 

 from those which are elective and conditional, or, in a single 

 word, instinct from intelligence, all contradiction ceases, and 

 order takes the place of confusion ; whatever, in animals, be- 

 longs to intelligence, in no respect approximates to the intelli- 

 gence of man ; and whatever in them, passing for intelligence, 

 appears superior to that of man, is nothing more than the effect 

 f a mechanical and blind power. 



It now only remains to fix the limit which separates the in- 

 telligence of man from that of brutes. Here the conceptions 

 of M. F. Cuvier became exalted, and withal appear to be no 

 less certain. 



Animals, by means of their senses, receive impressions similar 

 to those which we receive through ours, and, like us, they pre- 

 serve the traces of these impressions ; these preserved impres- 

 sions form in their understanding, as in ours, numerous and 

 varied associations ; they combine them, they draw inferences 

 from them, they deduce conclusions from them, — in short they 

 have intelligence. But this is the limit of then intelligence. 

 The intelligence which they possess does not ponder concern- 

 ing itself, nor perceive, nor know itself. In short, they are des- 

 titute bf reflection, that supreme faculty, the endowment of the 





