Definitions. 185 



and the species ; and this they do by working won- 

 ders ; but if they did not perform these wonders ; 

 the species could not exist, as they are. 



Each step makes it plainer to us, that we have 

 not here a distinct principle or an agent, as Hamil- 

 ton calls it ; ^* but that an Instinct is simply an im- 

 pulse to a particular kind of voluntary action which 

 the being needs to perform as an individual or represen- 

 tative of a species ; but which he could not possibly 

 learn to perform before he 7ieeds to act. And the gen- 

 eral term, INSTINCT, includes all the original hnpulses, 

 — excepting the Appetites^ — and that knowledge and 

 skilly with which animals are endowed — which experi- 

 ence may call into exercise, but which it does not give. 



All of these are given to an animal in proportion 

 to his need — according to the conditions under 

 which he is to start in life ; and not at all in pro- 

 portion to his rank in the scale of being. And all 

 attempts to fix the rank of an animal by means of 

 the number and perfection of those principles of 

 action, utterly fail. It is just as logical to argue 

 that a Sea-urchin is nearly allied to man in structure, 

 because his spines have ball and socket joints, like 

 the limbs of man, as to argue that an animal is near 

 man in Intelligence, because his instinctive acts 

 imitate the intelligent acts of man. 



If we accept the account thus far given of the 

 nature of instinctive acts, we must be prepared to 

 recognize Intelligence as reaching much lower in 

 the scale of being than it has generally been sup- 

 posed that it does. And by intelligence, we mean 

 * Metapliysi(;s, Bowen's Ed., p. 505. 



