Examination of Some Objections. 49 



certain actions/ and he distinguishes mechanical, 1 im- 

 aginative and spontaneous impulses. Imaginative im- 

 pulses extend partly to present, partly to past facts; 

 spontaneous impulses spring one and all from pleasure 

 or displeasure, and they are either natural, or derivative 

 impulses. He subdivides natural, spontaneous impulses 

 into the general impulse of self-love, and into particular 

 impulses, the latter of which are partly emotional, partly 

 artificial impulses. . . . According to Reimarus the 

 powers of soul and body in animals are more accurately 

 defined as regards their objects as well as the nature of 

 their agency, than they are in man. There is nothing 

 in the outward behavior of animals that indicates more 

 than indistinct and obscure apprehension, or forces us 

 to accredit them with proper concepts, judgments and 

 deductions ; there is much, however, that manifests the 

 very contrary; animals, therefore, do not think." 



Even Perty, who, as a modern psychologist, enter- 

 tains the conviction that animals do "think," is forced 

 to confess that Reimarus has nothing to do with that 

 modern animal psychology according to which animals 

 possess an intelligence which is essentially identical with 

 human reason, and differs only in degree. For 

 Reimarus was not so superficial as to regard all actions 

 of the animal which were due to sense experience as 

 intelligent. Whoever claims Reimarus for this school 

 of psychology has evidently not read his works at all, 



l ) The "mechanical impulses" of Reimarus respond to what we call 

 reflex-mechanisms. The "imaginative impulses" comprise the acts of 

 sensile cognition. The "spontaneous impulses" are the instinctive im- 

 pulses which spring from the sensile appetite and which he understands 

 in the same way as we do. 



