CHAPTER VI. 

 Instinct and Intelligence. 



"VW" HAT is the true criterion of distinction between 

 instinct and intelligence? 



A brief exposition of the nature of an intelligent 

 act will furnish an answer to this question. We may 

 define intelligent, in opposition to instinctive, activity 

 as one that is performed with perfect consciousness of 

 its tendency, and is consequently guided by a purely 

 spiritual faculty of cognition and appetite. 



The first part of this definition is self-evident, 

 and sufficiently characterizes intelligent activity. 

 Moreover, it is generally admitted. Thus Emery 

 describes intelligence as the faculty of abstracting 

 general ideas from the multiplex phantasms which 

 have been acquired by experience, and of utilizing 

 them in connection with sensuous images to perform 

 actions which imply a conscious final tendency. And, 

 strange as it may sound, all our opponents without 

 exception, notwithstanding their own false criterion, 

 endeavor to prove the intelligence of animals by 

 ascribing to them a consciousness of final tendency. 

 They do not commit the absurdity of denying the ne- 

 cessity of this tendency for such actions as the plan- 

 ning of houses, the framing of laws, the solution of 

 mathematical problems and all purely intelligent act- 

 ivity, but readily admit that this very consciousness 



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