230 LESSONS FROM NATUEE. [CHAP. VII. 



tion and association,&quot; is required to account for the actions of 

 the wasp Sphex, for those of the carpenter bee, and for our 

 own instinctive actions ; and if &quot; Instinct &quot; is required to ex 

 plain these, it may equally be used to explain a multitude of 

 other acts also. The principle once admitted, all is admitted. 

 But how, then, are we to understand &quot; Instinct ? &quot; what is 

 what is in- it ? The general notion of Instinct is that of an 

 imparted peculiar 



&quot; impulse urging animals to the performance of certain actions which 

 are useful to themselves or to their kind, but the use of which 

 they do not themselves perceive, and their performance of which is a 

 necessary consequence of their being placed in certain circumstances 

 and feeling certain sensations.&quot; Todd s Cyclopaedia, vol. iii. p. 3. 



We have seen, more or less clearly, what it is not, and by 

 what essential differences of kind it is distinguishable from 

 Keason. But its very existence is altogether denied by some 

 contemporary thinkers, in spite of the manifest peculiarity 

 of many animal actions, the performance of which cannot be 

 denied. This denial is perhaps, in part, due to a misappre 

 hension. Certainly Instinct has no real substantial existence 

 at all distinct from the life of the animal which exhibits it, 

 just as &quot;life&quot; itself is nothing substantially distinct from the 

 creature living. Perhaps, then, the great objection which 

 many men seem to entertain against the recognition of &quot; In 

 stinct&quot; as something to be distinguished as existing, and to 

 be separately considered and treated of, is their idea that by 

 such consideration and treatment a metaphysical abstraction 

 is taken for a substantial entity. Now Instinct as Instinct is, 

 of course, a mere abstraction, and exists only in the mind, 

 though it exists concretely enough in animal actions of a 

 special kind. Instinct is, concretely, the animal organism 

 energizing in certain ways. 



Mr. Lewes speaks the language of the true philosophy 

 when he says : 



&quot; Co-ordination, mind, and life are abstractions : they are realities 

 in the sense of being drawn from real concretes ; but they are not 

 realities existing apart from their concretes otherwise than in our con- 



