4 ; INSTINCT. 
tions, the sensations, the voluntary powers, the 
memory and instinct of the animals are all 
brought into play; but we have no reason to 
believe that, the animals performing them are 
on of anticipating their ultimate result. 
n all cases, those actions which are en- 
titled to the appellation of Instinctive are ge- 
nerally understood to be characterized by two 
marks, quite sufficient to distinguish them from 
the effects of voluntary power guided by rea- 
son: 1. That, although in many cases expe- 
rience is required to give the will command 
over the muscles concerned in them, yet the 
will, when under the influence of the instinc- 
tive determination, acts equally well the first 
time as the last; no experience or education is 
required, in order that the different voluntary 
efforts requisite for these actions may follow 
one another with unerring precision; and 2. 
That they are always performed by the same 
species of animal nearly, if not exactly, in the 
same manner; presenting no such variation of 
the means applied to the object in view, and 
admitting of no such improvements in the pro- 
gress of life or in the succession of ages, as 
we observe in the habits of individual men, or 
in the manners and customs of nations, adapted 
to the attainment of any particular ends by 
those voluntary efforts which are guided by 
Reason. “ The manufactures of animals,” says 
Dr. Reid, “ differ from those of men in many 
striking particulars. No animal of the species 
can claim the invention. No animal ever in- 
troduced any new improvement, or variation 
from the former practice. Every one has equal 
skill from the beginning, without teaching, 
without experience or habits. Every one has 
its art by a kind of inspiration, i. e. the ability 
and inclination of working in it without any 
knowledge of its principles.” A third distinc- 
tive mark, naturally resulting from the last, 
is at least equally characteristic, although much 
less generally observable,—that these instinc- 
tive actions are seen to be performed in cir- 
cumstances which reason informs us to be such 
as to render them nugatory for the ends which 
are usually accomplished by them, and for 
which they are obviously designed. The 
efforts made by migratory birds, even when 
confined, at their usual period of migration,— 
the mistake of the flesh-fly who deposits her 
eggs on the carrion-plant instead of a piece of 
meat,* or of the hen who sits on a pebble in- 
stead of an egg, or of the mule which remains 
immoveably fixed by terror instead of escaping 
from the flood which threatens to overwhelm it, 
(as exemplified in the inundation of the valley 
of Luisnes in Savoy in 1818,) or of the bee 
which gathers and stores up honey even in 
a climate where there is no winter,} are so 
many proofs, that an instinctive action is 
mpted by an impulse, which results merely 
m a particular sensation or emotion being 
felt, not by anticipation of the effect which the 
action will produce. 
* Kirby. 
t See Kirby enn sigs Introduction to Ento- 
mology, vol. ii. p, 469. 
But, in order to have demonstrative proof 
of the essential difference between instinct and 
reason, and of the correctness of the view 
which we take of the nature of that mental 
impulse which prompts what we call the in- — 
stinctive actions of animals, it is only neces- 
sary to reflect on what passes within ourselves 
on occasion of certain actions of the very” 
same class being performed by us. It is dif- 
ficult, indeed, in adult age, to distinguish — 
those actions which we perform instinctively — 
from those which we have learnt by 
efforts to perform habitually; bat in the case — 
of infants we see complex actions, useful or — 
necessary to the system, performed with per- — 
fect precision at a time when we are certain 
that the human intellect is quite incompetent 
to comprehend their importance or antici 
their effects yet we cannot doubt that it is by 
a mental impulse that they are excited, 
we perform the same actions in the same cir- 
cumstances in adult age, and are then con- — 
scious of the impulse which prompts them. — 
“ Tt is an instinct,” says Bichat, “ which I do 
not understand, and of which I cannot give 
the smallest account, which makes the i 
at the moment of birth, draw together its Pd 
to commence the action of sucking,” to be fo 
lowed by the still more complex act of deglu- 
tition. “ This cannot be wae to the mere 
novelty of the sensations which it experiences 
from snietial objects, for the general effect of 
such sensations is to determine various agita- 
tions or irregular movements indeed, but not 
an uniform movement, directed to a deter- 
minate end. If we examine different animals — 
at the moment of birth, we shall see that the — 
special instinct of each directs the execution — 
of peculiar movements. Young gee | 
of 
{ 
* 
' 
seek the mamme of their mothers, bi 
the order Gallinacee seize immediately the 
grain which is their appropriate nourishment, 
while the young of the Carnivorous birds 
merely open their mouths to receive the food 
which their parents bring to their nests. In 
general, it is very important to distinguish the 
irregular or varied movements which, at pe Tt 
moment of birth, are produced simply 
new sensations and excitements which the body — 
receives, from those definite actions which are 
the effect of instinct, a cause of which we can 
give no further explanation.” 
In fact, when we attend to the simple action 
of deglutition,* as performed in our mature | 
years, we may be conscious that it results from 
the same instinctive impulse which guided it 
with unerring precision in the new-born infant, 
long before the voluntary power of simply 
raising the hand to the mouth had been ac- 
quired. If we were to consult only the grati- 
fication of our sensations, we should Bae 
grateful food in the mouth; for when it is swe 
lowed the gratification immediately resulting 
from it is atan end, and there is no peculiar 
pleasure attached, in other circumstances, to 
the mere act of deglutition; but all we can 
* [I. e. that part of the act which is dependent 
on the voluntary movement of the — to pass 
on the food to the isthmus faucium.—ED.] 
i 
