II. III.] INSTINCT FOR FOOD. 147 



282. By the pre-ordination of nature (263), animals that 

 drink, feel a painful external sensation (280) in the gullet, 

 throat, and mouth, whenever their bodies require more fluids. 

 This is the sensational stimulus of thirsty which consists in an 

 eff'ort to produce the sensation antagonistic to this painful 

 sensation; or, in other words, to feel moisture of the parts, 

 which is the intent of nature in the instinct, and its object in 

 animals, although it is concealed from them, and they are 

 quite ignorant why the parts should be moistened (266). 

 Everything which induces this unpleasant sensation, as heat, 

 dust, want of fluids and of saliva, salts, wine, spices, &c., in a 

 word, everything which dries and heats, excites the sensational 

 stimulus and the instinct to drink. The sensational stimulus 

 manifests its sentient actions more strongly and contra-naturally 

 (271, 276, iv) in proportion as it is excessive, as is shown by 

 the oppressive thirst of fevers, &c. Inasmuch as the sensational 

 stimulus is a foreseeing of a moistening of the mouth and throat, 

 it manifests its sentient actions in the parts by a frequent swal- 

 lowing of the saliva, for the purpose of moistening the mouth and 

 throat, and thereby attaining the object which results from the 

 real act of drinking, or the satisfying of the instinct : the efi'ort 

 of the animal- sentient forces to excite these movements is the 

 sentient action of thirst, or the instinct for drink itself. Thirst 

 acts consequently on the organs predetermined to be moistened, 

 — the tongue, the muscles of deglutition, the throat, &c., — so that 

 it develops certain movements necessary to the act of drinking, 

 according to the laws of the sentient actions of the sensational 

 instincts (277), which movements become perfect during the 

 resulting quenching of the thirst (257); and in such cases 

 have, as a consequence, beneficial actions in the animal economy, 

 in accordance with the connection of the physical, mechanical, 

 and animal forces of the body, constituting the design of nature 

 in the drinking of animals, and which are specially described in 

 works on the physiology of the peculiar mechanism of animal 

 bodies. {Vide Haller's 'Physiology,' § 639.) 



Loathing is just the opposite to the instinct for food. The 

 unpleasant external sensation, or idea, of an overloaded or cor- 

 rupted stomach, excites the mind to develop the antagonistic 

 sensation, the emptying of the stomach, which is accomplished 

 by abstaining from food, and by the act of vomiting, &c. 



