CHAPTER FOURTH. 



OF INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT. 



185. BESIDES the material substance of which the body is 

 constructed, there is also an immaterial principle, which, 

 though it eludes detection, is none the less real, and to which 

 we are constantly obliged to recur in considering the pheno- 

 mena of life. It originates with the body, and is developed 

 with it, while yet it is totally apart from it. The study of 

 this inscrutable principle belongs to one of the highest branches 

 of philosophy ; and we shall here merely allude to some of its 

 phenomena which elucidate the development and rank of 

 animals. 



186. The constancy of species is a phenomenon depending 

 on the immaterial nature. Animals, and plants also, produce 

 their kind, generation after generation. We shah 1 hereafter 

 show that all animals may be traced back, in the embryo, to a 

 mere point in the yolk of the egg, bearing no resemblance 

 whatever to the future animal, and no inspection could enable 

 us to declare with certainty what that animal is to be ; but 

 even here, an immaterial principle is present, which no external 

 influence can modify, and which determines the growth of the 

 future being. Essentially the egg of the hen, for instance, 

 cannot be made to produce any other animal than a chicken ; 

 and the egg of the cod-fish produces only the cod. It may 

 therefore be said with truth, that the chicken and the cod 

 existed in the egg before their formation as such. 



187. PERCEPTION is a faculty springing from this prin- 

 ciple. The organs of sense are the instruments for receiving 

 sensations, but they are not the faculty itself, without which 

 they would be useless. We all know that the eye and ear 

 may be open to the sights and sounds about us, but if the 

 mind happens to be preoccupied, we perceive them not. We 



