394 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



kind of dependence between the wants and organs of ani- 

 mals, the phenomena of instinct would admit, so far, of an 

 easy explanation. When the organ was affected by the 

 exciting cause, the action would follow as a matter of course, 

 without intelligence having any thing to say to it. And 

 query, if this is not really the case? If this hypothesis has 

 not something more to rest on than mere analogy? If it is 

 not to a certain extent based in fact? 



In reality, do we not discover the existence of such an 

 immediate relation in ourselves primitively established be- 

 tween the wants and organs ? We have no more need than 

 animals of the assistance of thought, to enable us to stop, 

 to recede, or to fly, on the sight of a new object which af- 

 frights us. The sentiment of fear is alone sufficient to sus- 

 pend or excite the action of the muscles, without intelli- 

 gence taking the slightest share in the operation. Various 

 other instances of this sort may be adduced in children, and 

 even in men, to prove this immediate relation between the 

 wants and organs. We should be unfortunate indeed, if 

 our self-preservation, that of our offspring, and our species, 

 depended always on the complicated processes of reasoning 

 and the tardy decisions of judgment. 



Now the phenomena of habit, only that we know how 

 they originated, are exactly similar to those of instinct. In 

 reading, in the exercise of arms, in the motion of the fingers 

 on an instrument of music, everything is organic. When 

 we read, we recognise characters, and articulate the sounds 

 which they represent, while our minds are entirely occupied 

 by the sense of what we are reading. The fencer follows 

 with his foil the foil of his adversary, and no act of thought 

 contributes to his rapid motions; the pianist runs over the 

 keys in all directions with both his hands, forming all the 

 combinations which the ten fingers are capable of, while 

 his attention is exclusively fixed upon the notes placed before 

 his eyes, and which he is employed in reproducing on his 



