INSTINCT. 305 



it is composecfof ideas truly innate, in which the 

 senses have never had the smallest share*." Dr. 

 Mason Good justly remarks that Cuvier appears in 

 this to confound instincts with ideas, as others have 

 confounded them with feelings. 



Dr. Virey has taken rather a different, and, so far 

 as anatomy is concerned, a very ingenious view of 

 the differences between reason and instinct. His 

 opinions on the subject perhaps amount to no more 

 than a plausible theory; but some of his illustrations 

 are interesting and lead the mind on to think for 

 itself on this curious subject: 



''The mover of instinct is only the love of self, 

 or the preservation of the individual and its kind; 

 a sentiment implanted in all organized beings, and 

 among animals regulated by pleasure and pain, 

 which inspires in them inclinations, aversions, and 

 affections'. Hence the individual brings into action 

 the admirable mechanism of the organs with which it 

 is endowed : it associates their different acts ; led on 

 continually by the pleasure of following nature, it 

 works spontaneously, and always well, without know- 

 ing it does well, and without trial or repetitions. We 

 shall even see that by contradicting this instinctive 

 direction, the animal endeavours to attain its object 

 by all the means at its disposal, but without evincing 

 that it acts from judgment. 



4< The difference, indeed, between instinct and rea- 

 son is very marked. Pure instinct works always 

 without deliberation ; but maturely driven on by want 

 or desire, by sentiments, passions, and every species 

 of interior excitement, involuntarily. It pursues but 

 one route ; it aspires at what is useful and profitable 

 in life, which it always recognizes by secret affinity. 

 Among insects there is no apprenticeship, no im- 

 provement, no variation in the practice, no super- 

 * Annales du Museum d'Hist. Nat. xvi. 46. 



