94 CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD, ESQ., M.A., B.M. (OXON.), ETC, 
unable to satisfy himself that they have not a cogitative 
origin of the kind which characterises Man. 
In other words, it seems to us thoroughly logical to 
deduce from them the consideration that, smce no sophism 
can endow the acts quoted above with an origin in thought, 
reflection, or reasoning, the ground is cut away from those 
who would urge that certain other actions, apparently, 
perhaps, a degree more complicated, should be dependent 
upon or accompanied by such thought, reflection, or reason- 
ing, in or for their performance. If, therefore, the acts 
described above can be conceivably performed without the 
aid of reason, properly so-called, in any degree whatever, so 
also may those of which we are apt to take an anthropo- 
morphic view, and which, perhaps, on that ground, appear 
to us to be slightly more indicative of intelligence. 
But the error lies in carrying the argument the wrong 
way : in setting out with the hypothesis that Reason, such as 
that with which Man is endowed, is the mainspring of com- 
plicated animal instincts, and thus adapting the active 
phenomena of the animal kingdom to this view; instead of 
viewing these characteristic mstincts dispassionately, estab- 
lishing their nature, and passing from the more simple to 
others more complicated, such as the so-called political 
economics of bees and ants, &c. In the first method, the 
judgment is throughout warped by a prejudice in favour of 
Intelligence, which entirely prevents an unbiassed examina- 
tion of the facts. 
One would almost imagine that plain common sense 
would be sufficient to discriminate between the instinct of 
the lower animals and human Reason. The very fact of the 
utter impossibility of passing a fixed boundary lne in the 
mental development of animals, either by the most careful 
and laborious education and training, or by selection from a 
long line of animals which have had the advantage of 
contact with Man for indefinite generations, would, one 
might reasonably suppose, be sufficient to demonstrate that 
the instinct of animals is a strictly limited endowment, 
which is not the same in kind as the Reason of Man. In 
Man may be found every degree of mental endowment, from 
the merely sensuous and animal perceptions of the niicro- 
cephalous idiot, with an abortive organ, to the colossal intel- 
lect of a Bacon or a Newton, provided with a normal 
instrument of thought; but, in animals, their instinctive 
sensuous perceptions are ever at a standstill. “Thus far, 
and no farther,” is the principle of their minds. Take the 
