ISO Mr. French on the nature of Instinct. 



in the sky : — a nation of dumb-rationals, — reasoning lookers-on, 

 presenting a mysterious anomaly in the works of Creation. 



From the views here submitted, may be deduced the impossi- 

 bility of any practical separation between Reason, and a conscious 

 Intelligence of a superior order, like that of Man. We may, 

 indeed, distinguish between them in the abstract; but we cannot 

 separate them in the conscious nature of the creature. And this 

 consideration, if it be founded in truth, is of itself alone sufficient 

 to account for the perplexity which has involved the views of 

 Philosophers, upon the subject of Instinct. 



I have, in the course of these remarks, occasionally distin- 

 guished between Intelligence considered potentialli/jund actually ; 

 or between capability of developement, and actuality ; because it 

 may be said that the human infant doe« not reason : but there is 

 in every human mind potentially the faculty which enables it to 

 reason, whether in a state of developement or not; and if the 

 brute is not in like manner possesed of it potentially, he can 

 never be capable of reasoning upon any thing — all his percep- 

 tions must differ in kind from those of Man. What the conse- 

 quences would be, if the brute possessed such a faculty, I have 

 on a former occasion endeavoured to trace. 



There is then, I conceive, an influence proceeding from the 

 human mind, which affects a collateral contingent Instinct in the 

 Brute, limited however in its extent and power by final causes; 

 which collateral Instinct acting upon a mental organization fitted 

 to receive its operation, renders the Brute, in a certain degree, 

 the Agent of Human Rationality : — and to this collateral Instinct 

 may be referred the whole of the phaenomena of the particular 

 class of actions we have now been considering. The truth of 

 this conclusion is confirmed by the stationary consciousness of 

 Brutes in the scale of Being ; it is accordant with the actual 

 phaenomena, and is plainly deducible from them. It by no 

 means militates against the known capacity in animals for edu- 

 cation or instruction, such as this education and instruction really 

 is: and finally, it is quite compatible with their improvement by 

 tneans of experience : — for that the strength and perfection of the 

 same perceptions and discriminations, when excited successively, 



