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ANIMAL INSTINCTS. 



[WRITTEN IN 1869.J 



THIS is one of those subjects of enquiry in which, 

 though furnished with facts and instances innumerable, 

 we yet fail to reach that ultimate truth which it is the 

 object of all philosophy to attain. No effort of reason 

 or speculation has yet reached the core of the question. 



In a chapter on ' Instincts and Habits,' in my 

 volume of ' Mental Physiology,' I have sought to define 

 the actual state of our knowledge on the subject ; and 

 the relation of this great problem of animal life to 

 others blended with it inextricably blended, we may 

 say, since no artifice of definition can dissever that 

 continuity which pervades all forms and functions of 

 the animal world, from the highest to the lowest. When 

 we say that nothing is done in nature per saltum, we 

 are denoting a general fact, if not law, which Leibnitz 

 was one of the first to recognise and apply in philo- 

 sophy, and which every later advancement in science 

 has tended to illustrate and confirm none more so 

 than the subject before us. 



The following paper will be supplemental in some 

 sort to the chapter above-mentioned. The facts must 

 mainly be the same ; but I shall seek to give them 

 more explicit direction to those conclusions, posi- 



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