INSTINCT AND REASON. 115 
and properly directed they would seem to have, not indeed 
infinite, but certainly indefinite, powers of expansion, of 
which our highest efforts here serve to afford but a slight 
glimpse or foretaste. And the manifestations of genius with 
which we are familiar in exceptionally-gifted human beings, 
since they thus depend upon organic variation whose ulti- 
mate cause is unknown, and, although belonging to the 
highest regions of organic nature, are nevertheless, like 
other organic variations, liable to descend by inheritance, 
and to reappear in the next or even in the alternate genera- 
tion, so that hereditary genius does not seem to be a pheno- 
menon of greater singularity or import than the heredity of 
any other organic trait, or of any other of the multitudinous 
variations which the infinity of nature exhibits. 
The possibilities of human nature, and of human faculty, 
are boundless. But let no man scorn that in another which 
he does not feel moving in himself; for it may be one day 
discovered that such shortsighted contempt will bring upon 
itself its own retributive punishment. 
The Cuarrman (Rev. F. A. Walker, D.D., F.L.S.) conveyed a 
vote of thanks to Dr. Collingwood for his able paper, and after a 
discussion of a general character the meeting was adjourned. 
REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING PAPER. 
By Professor E. Huut, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Director of 
the Geological Survey of Ireland.—Dr. Collingwood seems to me 
to have very ably stated the essential distinction between instinct 
in the lower animals and reason in man. The two master passions 
in the former—those connected with nutrition and reproduction— 
are, as he points out, limited to those purposes, and are purely 
sensuous; in man, they are made subservient to his higher mental 
and spiritual nature. The emotion or passion arising from the 
apprehension of impending danger which we call ‘‘fear”’ is 
equally powerful in man and the brute; though in the former the 
exercise of the intellectual faculty tends to neutralise its force. 
The origin of instinct in the lower animals is as great a mystery 
as the origin of genera and species; and notwithstanding al] that 
has been written on this subject by Darwin, Romanes, and others, 
VOL. XXIV. K 
