ORDER PACHYDERM AT A. 395 



instrument. All these exercises, and every mechanic art, 

 are performed with greater perfection, in proportion as they 

 are more withdrawn from • the influence of thought. As 

 long as that is necessary, the action is badly performed, 

 and it is only by approximating to animals, that we acquire 

 perfection in all such exercises. In short there is nothing 

 absolutely different in the modus operandi of habit, and 

 that of instinct; and the comparison of the weaver and spider 

 is much more exact than has been imagined. The two 

 orders of phenomena might be so far confounded, that an in- 

 stinct might appear to be positively formed from habit. A 

 person who was exercised from infancy in collecting and 

 hiding the remnant of his meals, would end by doing so as 

 mechanically and as uselessly as the domestic dog. 



These notions are by no means in opposition to the prin- 

 ciples of mental philosophy which have been generally 

 received. A distinction has always been admitted between 

 the intellectual and active powers : two separate classes of 

 phenomena belong to each, and, consequently, two dif- 

 ferent assemblages of organs, as the seats of these pheno- 

 mena. 



It appears extremely probable, that it is in the organs of 

 activity that the instinctive faculties reside. The phe- 

 nomena of habit seem to present, not only an excellent 

 illustration, but something very like a direct proof of this. 

 The frequent operations of the intellectual power, or of 

 any other cause on the active organs, must be immensely 

 strengthened by the repeated influence of the one, and the 

 exercise of the others, and must end by becoming a neces- 

 sary mode of action. In the same manner instinctive 

 actions are the result of a necessary mode, but of a mode 

 which, instead of being acquired, is primitive and essential 

 to the nature of the beings which exhibit these actions. 

 Thus the instinctive action and the habitual action may be 

 considered, in the actual modus operandi, precisely the 



