The Governing Principle, 207 



their own experience ; and, especially, they are able 

 to come into such relations to man, as to com 

 prehend his desires and perform his commands. 



All these operations certainly involve thinking, 

 as we have defined the word, and as it is generally 

 used. If we accept some different definition, — one 

 that eliminates all these elements, or which intro- 

 duces such elements as cannot be indicated by any 

 of these manifestations, of which dumb animals are 

 capable, let us know just what this definition is. 

 When we have the definition, it will be for the one 

 giving it to show, by something more than mere asser- 

 tion, that animals are excluded, even according to 

 his own definition, from the list of thinking beings. 



What then, in the animal, is the governing prin- 

 ciple? We say, INSTINCT, or the spontaneous, 

 self-directing activities, in distinction from free In- 

 telligence, a degree of which animals possess. This 

 we attempted briefly to show in the last lecture ; 

 and shall more fully illustrate, when treating of man. 

 But at this point of the discussion we wish to say, 

 that while we concede Intelligence to the higher 

 animals, in distinction from Instinct, we find noth- 

 ing in them that can control Instinct, or any power 

 by which the animal may be said to control its own 

 destiny. One instinct may, from certain circum- 

 stances, control another; as when parental love 

 overcomes the fear of danger ; but when we consid- 

 er the acts oT animals, as a whole, we find them so 

 completely under the dominion of the instinctive 

 principles, that the results are almost precisely the 

 same in all the thousands of a given species. It is 



