74 INSTINCT AND REASON. 



insensible gradations of perceptive being-, ' If we look/ 

 he says, * into the several inward perfections of cunning 

 and sagacity, or what we generally call instinct, we 

 find them rising after the same manner, imperceptibly 

 one above another, and receiving additional improve- 

 ments, according to the species in which they are im- 

 planted. This progress in nature is so very gradual, 

 that the most perfect of an inferior species comes very 

 near to the most imperfect of that which is immediately 

 above it.' Again : ' The whole chasm in nature, from 

 a plant to a man, is filled up with divers kinds of 

 creatures, rising one over another, by such a gentle and 

 easy ascent, that the little transitions and deviations 

 from one species to another are almost insensible ; ' and 

 he quotes with approbation a passage from Locke, in 

 which we read, ' There are some brutes that seem to 

 have as much knowledge and reason as some that are 

 called men 1 .' Pope, who pursues much the same track 

 in his ' Essay on Man,' permits himself to speak of ' the 

 half-reasoning elephant.' Any one who doubts the 

 appropriateness of such an epithet, not only to the 

 elephant but to many other animals, should begin to 

 study the ways and doings of the lower creatures with 

 an eye to this very question, at every turn asking 

 himself how the action observed can be accounted for 

 by a blind irrational instinct. A stumbling horse, for 

 example, that is generally beaten for stumbling, starts 

 after a false step before the lash is applied. How ridi- 

 culous will it be to ascribe to horses an instinct of 



1 'Spectator,' No. 519. 



