180 SPECIES NOT 



their time in splitting hairs, about the distinctive 

 speciality of this or that form; or if, instead of 

 straining resemblances into analogies, and analo- 

 gies into homologies, they would study nature 

 more in the field, and less in the closet, we should 

 hear little said, or urged, or written, against the 

 special creation of organized beings. 



On the subject of instinct, I cannot refrain 

 from quoting here the following passages from 

 Professor Goodsir's admirable and highly philoso- 

 phical address, delivered to the graduates in 

 medicine, in the University of Edinburgh, for 

 1859. These remarks have a general significance, 

 and a wide application to the question we are 

 now discussing: 



"A man is distinguished from all the other 

 organized beings, in the midst of which lie is 

 placed, by the comprehensiveness of the conditions 

 of his economy; he is also peculiar in the mode 

 in which he is able to provide for them. His 

 peculiarity consists not so much in the complexity 

 of his corporeal frame, as in the character and 

 sphere of his consciousness. The conscious prin- 

 ciple, if the expression may be so applied, of the 

 horse or dog, is influenced only by external cir- 

 cumstances; the sphere of its activity is, so to 

 speak, altogether external to itself, impressible 

 from without, and therefore in some sort conscious 

 of surrounding objects, it is altogether unconscious 

 of itself. The so-called mental powers of the 

 animal are capacities and faculties, excited only 

 by corresponding external objects, or by the re- 



