CHAP. VII.] THE BKUTE. 237 



ception; and to seek their objective substratum we must seek the 

 concrete objects of which they are the symbols.&quot; Problems of Life and 

 Mind, vol. i. p. 281. 



This is the very teaching of St. Thomas. 



All the functions of each brute animal, all instinctive ac 

 tions included, necessarily go with structure, and vary with 

 it, structure and function being like the convexities and con 

 cavities of a curved line, one necessarily accompanying the 

 other. To explain either thoroughly is to explain both. 

 The origin of one is necessarily the origin of the other. 

 Modern science, by its investigations of the simplest 

 organisms, has abundantly shown that life cannot be a con 

 sequence of organisation ; but neither need it be a cause, but 

 an inseparable accompaniment ; life of a particular though 

 merely sensitive kind emerging from potentiality into 

 actuality at the very moment that matter assumes a certain 

 special and definite condition. &quot;Instinct&quot; then, no more 

 than &quot; structure,&quot; can be explained by the survival of the 

 fittest. 



Thus the &quot;instinct&quot; of each animal is an abstraction denot 

 ing the faculty of performing that group of actions what it is. 

 which are the inseparable accompaniments of its structure, 

 as stimulated by sensation. But such &quot; faculty,&quot; again, is, 

 of course, nothing distinct from the &quot; soul &quot; of each animal ; 

 which soul, once more, has no substantial existence apart 

 from the living animal itself. 



This is not the place to defend the doctrine that the &quot; soul &quot; 

 of each animal is no mere plexus of physical forces trans 

 formed by passing through a certain kind of matter so as to 

 simulate a unity, but is a real, existing, single unity, a single 

 form of force (so to speak) evoked by concurrent circum 

 stances from potentiality into actuality. Nevertheless, I 

 may be permitted to here affirm my belief that this doctrine 

 is the one which best accords with what science teaches 

 the doctrine, namely, that instinct is an abstraction denoting 

 a particular kind of action of such animal soul. 



Concurrent with such doctrine is the view, which I also 



