INSTINCT AND REASON. TOs 
common, or even exceptional experience, the infant is long 
incapable of anything except of drawing nutriment from the 
maternal bosom. And when the first dawning of intelligence 
begins to supervene, we find that it appears and gains incre- 
ment part passu with the degree in which its attention is 
directed to, or arrested by, the external objects presented to 
it by its parents or nurse. In other words, the infant is at 
first a mere corporeal being, with no instinct except that of 
sucking, and altogether devoid of intelligence; all that con- 
duces to intelligence lying dormant and undeveloped. It is 
even quite devoid of that affection which we have seen to 
constitute the nature or the very life of the animal. The 
infant at first possesses absolutely no knowledge, no cogni- 
tions, and is therefore endowed with no affection of any kind; 
for the affection which constitutes the nature of an animal is 
based upon cognitions, and cannot exist apart from them. 
And since no infant possesses such cognitions, it therefore 
cannot possess intuitions of any kind whatever. 
A human infant can only obtain its knowledge by means 
of external observation, aided by external instruction. It 
begins to “take notice” at an early period, but this notice or 
observation would be insufficient to teach it ideas without 
the intervention of others who already possessed such ideas : 
and this external intervention or instruction can alone store 
the dawning mind with facts or experiences, which lead to 
thoughts and ideas, and which thus gradually establish 
specific affections. So that, without such external instruction, 
the infant would and must remain, in its relation to the external 
world, more ignorant than an animal, since it would not only 
be void of animal innate cognition, but would have nothing 
to supply the deficiency, while its internal world would re- 
main as a permanently sealed book, for want of any power of 
expansion within itself. Such indeed is the condition of the 
lower savage races, who are born and live without instruc- 
tion or cultivation from without, and are yet incapable of im- 
proving themselves from within. For inasmuch as all are 
rude and uncultivated alike, none is capable of teaching the 
rest that of which they are themselves ignorant. 
Such unciyilised people would indeed, from observation 
alone, slowly learn certain rudiments of knowledge, and gain 
a certain crude experience, which they would apply to the 
same purposes as those to which the instinct of animals is 
applied, as to food and shelter and security from danger, 
for these rudiments could only have reference to the general 
animal principles of nutrition and self-preservation. But 
