Some Spectilalions on the Nature of Instinct. 353 



might be mentioned . The following, from Dr. Hces's Cyclo- 

 pEeclia — article Instinct, — is well worth quoting : — <' A lady, 

 with whom we were acquainted, had a tame bird, which 

 she was in the habit of letting out of its cage every day. 

 One morning, as it was picking crumbs of bread off the' 

 carpet, her cat, who always before showed great kindness 

 for the bird, seized it on a sudden, and jumped with it in 

 her mouih upon a table. The lady, alarmed for the fate 

 of her favourite, on turning about observed that the door 

 had been left open, and that a strange cat had just come 

 into the room. After turning it out, her own cat came 

 down from her place of safety, and dropped the bird, with- 

 out injuring (if \\e may so express it) a hair of its head." 

 Will any one assert that this cat acted from '* a natural 

 . blind impulse, without having any end in view," or " with- 

 out any determinate view to consequences ?" We might as 

 well say, that to plunge into the water to save the life of a 

 fellow-creature, is an iir.tinctive involuntary action. This 

 sagacious animal perceiving the entrance of a strange cat 

 into the parlour of her benefactress, by the recollection of 

 her own predilection for bird's flesh, had suflicient intelli- 

 gence to know that the bird on the carpet was in danger 

 I'rom a similar appetite in a strange individual of her own 

 species. Here was the exercise of reason in a very high 

 degree; complex ideas, both of observation and experience; 

 the latter, recalled by an act of memory, must have passed 

 through the n)ind of the cat with inconceivable rapidity. 

 She acted from a certain motive, which we may naturally 

 suppose was that of attachment to the bird ; and she cer- 

 tainly appears to have had in view a determinate end, which 

 was ihe preservation of her little companion. She per- 

 ceived, she feltj she recollected, she willed, and she acted. 

 That the cat in this instance was a free agent, and exercised 

 the power of volition, cannot be denied; for powers and 

 feelings to be properly instinctive, must be in common to 

 the species; and the free agency of this animal is incontro- 

 vertibly established, if we can suppose that any other indi- 

 vidual of the feline race would not have acted with the 

 same feeling and intelligence, in a similar situation. If, 

 then, we observe one of the brute creation displaying all 

 those powers and faculties which are used for the definition 

 of that principle which we call soul, — consciousness, a 

 power of perception, memory, intelligence, and volition,— 

 why should we hesitate to ascribe similar phenomena to a 

 siini;lar cause? why should we refuse to believe that brutes 

 are animated by a sentient principle, analogous in ita essence 

 V(^l. 38. No. 163. Nov, 18) 1. Z to 



