AND IMMATER1ALISM. 327 



lorig as it is present, the sead or the egg is capable of specific developemcnt 

 and growth ; but the moment it quits its connexion, they can no more grow 

 than a grain of gunpowder. 



What now is this wonderful principle that so strikingly separates organized 

 from unorganized matter 1 that, as I have observed on a former occasion, 

 from the first moment it begins to act infuses energy into the lifeless clod; 

 draws forth form, and order, and individual being from unshapen matter, and 

 stamps with organization and beauty the common dust we tread upon?* I 

 have called it an agent or endowment : is it nothing more than these ? is it 

 a distinct essence ? and, if so, is this essence refined, etherealized matter, 

 freed from the more obvious properties of grosser matter, or is it strictly 

 immaterial ? It has been said by different physiologists to be oxygen, calo- 

 ric, the electric, or the galvanic gas; but all this is mere conjecture; and 

 even of several of these powers we know almost as little as we do of the 

 vital principle itself, and are incapable of tracing them in the vegetable system. 



The next curious energy we meet with in organized nature, and which also 

 equally belongs to animals and vegetables, is instinct. This I have defined 

 to be " the operation of the vital principle, or the principle of organized life 

 by the exercise of certain natural powers directed to the present or future 

 good of the individual, or of its progeny."! But what are these powers, 

 with which the vital principle is thus marvellously gifted, and which enables 

 it, under different circumstances, to avail itself of different means to produce 

 the same end ? that directs plants to sprout forth from the soil, and expand 

 themselves to the reviving atmosphere ; fishes to deposite their eggs in the 

 sands; birds in nests of the nicest and most skilful contrivance; and the 

 wilder quadrupeds to accomplish the same purpose in lairs or subterraneous 

 caverns ; that guides the young of every kind to its proper food, and, when- 

 ever necessary, teaches it how to suck ? Are these powers also material, or 

 are they immaterial 1 ? Are they simple properties issuing out of a peculiar 

 modification of matter, or something superadded to the material frame? 



In the confused language and confused ideas of various metaphysical 

 hypotheses, and even of one or two that pretend to great exactness in these 

 respects, instinct is made a part or faculty of the mind : and hence we hear 

 of a moral instinct. But has the polype, then, or the hydatid a mind ? Are 

 we to look for a mind in the midst of sponges, corals, and funguses? in the 

 spawn of frogs, or the seeds of mushrooms ? Instinct, however, the opera- 

 tion of the principle of life, equally superintending the entire frame, and every 

 separate part of it, guiding it to its perfect developement, exciting its pecu- 

 liar energies, remedying its occasional evils, and providing for a future pro- 

 geny, is equally to be traced in all of them ? Are instinct, then, and mind 

 the same thing ? or is the vocabulary of the hypotheses I now advert to, and 

 shall have occasion to examine more at large hereafter, so meagre and 

 limited that it is necessary to employ the same term to express ideas that 

 have no connexion with each other, and which cannot, therefore, be thus ex- 

 pressed without the grossest confusion? It is high time to be more accurate, 

 and to have both determinate words and determinate ideas ; and it has been 

 one object of this course of instruction to define what ought to be the real 

 distinction between instinct, sensation, and intelligence. 



But let us ascend a step higher in the great scale of life ; let us quit the 

 vegetable for the animal kingdom. If I take the egg or grain of a mustard- 

 seed, and the egg of a silk-worm, where is the chemist or physiologist that 

 will point out to me the diversity of their structure, or unfold the cause of 

 those different faculties which they are to evince on future developement and 

 growth? At present, so far as they appear to us, they are equally common 

 matter, actuated by the same common living principle, directed to different 

 ends. To give them developement and mature form, we equally expose 

 them to the operation of the sun and the atmosphere, and, in the case of the 

 mustard-seed, of moisture: and we are not conscious of exposing them to 



# Ser. i. Lect. ix. p. 101. t Ser it. Lect. iv. 



