362 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



further to discuss a question, on which novelty has been 

 long since exhausted, we shall confidently assume the dis- 

 tinctness, while we admit the connexion between mind and 

 matter with reference to the animal kingdom, below the 

 elevation of man, and as exemplified more especially in the 

 species before us, the Elephant. 



The bodies of brutes appear to us to be acted upon by 

 distinct excitements, which may be thus divided into three: 

 1. By involuntary mental impulse, or instinct, properly 

 speaking. 2. By involuntary corporeal impulse, nervous 

 irritability or mechanism, and 3. By voluntary mental im- 

 pulse on limited reason. 



Instinct, ev rt%siv, is strictly an inward goading or stimu- 

 lation to some particular action, in which general sense it 

 is applicable to the two first of these divisions ; or instinct, 

 properly speaking, and mechanism, sometimes called me- 

 chanical instinct. Confined to instinct, properly speaking, 

 it may be said to be, an involuntary desire or aversion, act- 

 ing on the mind without the intervention of reason, motive, 

 or deliberation, but tending uniformly and exclusively to 

 the preservation of the individual or propagation of the 

 race. If limited to mechanism, it may be defined as an in- 

 voluntary stimulus of an innate unknown power acting on 

 the principles of life, both animal and vegetable, for the 

 preservation and propagation of organized existence : in 

 either of these respects, it is the very antithesis of reason, 

 whose acts result from volition, are perfectly free, may be 

 beneficial, injurious, or indifferent to the creature, may 

 perpetuate its race, or work its desl ruction. 



Instinct, properly speaking, then, has more the character 

 of an immediate special interposition of Providence in 

 favour of the creature, than is ordinarily to be observed in 

 the common course of events, for however conscious we may 

 feel that the unceasing operations of the Deity must be ex- 

 ercised for the continuance of creation, that a momentary 

 suspension of His care, or as we more commonly say, of 



