INSTINCT AND REASON. 66 



of human instinct with animal instinct, or of ani- 

 mal reason witli human reason. It has been abun- 

 dantly demonstrated of late years both that man 

 l)ossesses true instincts and tliat some animals, at 

 least occasionally, display true reasoning powers. 

 No doubt, in man the instincts are reduced to 

 comparatively small dimensions, while the reason 

 has attained an exalted position far above what it 

 ever attains in the highest brutes. But that con- 

 sideration must not bliud us either to the fact 

 that we do really share with tlie animal world in 

 the great and valuable endowment of instinct, or 

 to the converse fact that animals do really share 

 with us, to a less degree, in the far greater and 

 still more valuable endowment of reason. These 

 two complementary principles have now for some 

 years been almost universally acknowledged 

 among naturalists, physiologists, and men of 

 science ; it is time that they should come to be 

 more generally recognized as true by the public 

 generally, learned or unlearned. 



In the first place, then, by way of deciding 

 whether human beings do or do not share in the 

 gift of instinct, let us begin by asking the prior 

 question, " What is an instinct, and how do we 

 know an action to be instinctive when we observe 

 it?" Instinct has been admirably defined by Dr. 

 Bain as an "untaught ability" — that is to say, 

 an ability inherited by a race as part of its mental 



