

EXTRACT XL 



ON INSTINCT AND REASON, AS RESPECTIVELY EMANA- 

 TING FROM, AND DOMINATED AND DETERMINED 

 BY, THE SYMPATHETIC AND SYSTEMIC NERVOUS 

 SYSTEMS. 



THIS transcendental psychological subject has exercised 

 the human intellect since the dawn of mental philosophy, 

 and is likely apparently to continue a subject for meta- 

 physical enquiry and calisthenics till " the end of time," 

 or until its solution becomes a scientific possibility. 

 Meantime, then, we would venture to indulge shortly 

 in the exhilarating exercise by adding a few thoughts to 

 the already large accumulation left by our mental philo- 

 sophical predecessors and other thinkers and writers more 

 amateurly interested in the subject. 



Instinct and reason are alike the functional result of 

 the action of nervine agency, or energy, on organised 

 matter, but through differing channels, or by different 

 nervous systems or structures, on differently responsive 

 organisms; the former, instinct, may be regarded as simple 

 and automatic, the latter, reason, as compound and auto- 

 determinant in nature and character. These resemblances 

 and differences must, therefore, be due to the existence 

 in their respective spheres of a principle of differentiation 

 in structure or innervation or both, in virtue of which 

 their specific nervine products become divisible into the 

 two categories. This principle of differentiation seems to 

 us naturally to flow out of, and be dependent upon, the 

 existence of two separate, but inter-dependent, nervous 

 systems; in the higher ranges of animal life each, to some 



