90 CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD, ESQ., M.A., B.M. (OXON.), ETC. 
But in addition to these limited phenomena to which the 
instinct of the lower animals is confined, Human Intelligence 
is capable of other, and infinitely more comprehensive, ex- 
pressions, and of transcendent mental feats which have no 
analogues, even, in mere instinct. To what animal can we 
attribute the power of reflecting upon its own being and 
existence, or of endeavouriug to unravel the phenomena 
of its own consciousness? What animal is capable of con- 
ceiving abstract ideas, such as goodness and truth? What 
animal (out of Ausop’s fables) can be imagined as exercising 
private or public judgment, of carrying on an inductive 
argument, of deducing sound principles from logical premises, 
or of even remotely comprehending, in the very faintest 
degree, the simplest or most rudimentary principles of 
Science or Art, or of experiencing, far less of expressing, 
any intellectual feeling or emotion? And if we add to all 
this vast superiority in Man that great prerogative of Reason, 
articulate speech, truly the difference between the mind of 
the highest animal and of the lowest Man, in whom all these 
magnificent capabilities unquestionably exist in posse, must 
be recognised as indeed, in the highest sense of the term, 
immense—immeasurable in degree, and also absolutely dis- 
tinct in kind. 
The question has often been discussed, whether either 
Man or animals are possessed of innate ideas. With regard 
to Man we shall speak later; but, as far as animals are con- 
cerned, it is a question which we shall not find it difficult to 
answer. For what constitutes an Idea? An idea consists in 
an impression of something not present, but which the mind 
is able to present to itself, or to recover by a mental opera- 
tion or exercise of thought ;—as Locke expresses it, “ what- 
ever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks.” 
But what reason have we for supposing that any animal 
thinks? The most marvellous illustrations of imstinct are 
observed in tiny animals whose nervous masses are neces- 
sarily exceedingly minute, and in their structure bear but 
little comparison with the brain of the really thinking animal, 
Man, or even with that of the higher Mammalia. And yet 
the bee, for instance, builds its cell in a geometrical form 
such as astonishes the mathematician by its accuracy of 
design and economy of material. But is it supposed by any- 
one that the bee thinks when it constructs these geometric 
cells; can it be imagined that the perfection of the cell 
depends on the bee’s thought concerning its work? Does 
not the bee construct its first cell equally well as its second ? 
