INSTINCT OP ANIMALS, . . . «^99 



IX. 



An Essay on Instinct, read to the French National Insti- 

 tute, by Mr. Dupont de Nemours *. 



T. 



HOUGII Descartes would have brutes to be mere ma- Animals pos-< 



chines, it is now the general opinion, that they are conscious ' e ? sed of con " . 

 e ., . ,. , , , . . sciousness, and 



oi tneir sensations, and that their actions are determined by act upon it. 



feelings of pleasure and pain; that they have a good me- 

 mory; that from repeated experience they form general 

 notions, founded on a sentiment of analogy ; that they are 

 guided by the pleasure or pain, which they are thus enabled 

 to foresee, and this frequently in spite of the actual impulse 

 of present pleasure or pain ; and finally that these means, 

 well managed, may be employed by man to educate them, 

 and lead them sometimes to acquire a habit of executing 

 with wonderful precision very difficult actions, and even .* 



some to which their structure seems not adapted. 



Neither does any philosopher doubt, that animals have Are capable of 



various modes of expressing their wants and passions: and ex P ressin S the >r 

 ;v , ,, e , ... , wants and pas- 



tnat those ot a superior order, or which approach us in sions. 



iheir organization, learn the signification of several of our 



words, which they obey without mistake. 



But independent of these faculties, which resemble ours Supposed like- 



«xcept in degree, and in which the different classes of ani- ™ se to h r Ve in " 



. stmctive facul- 



mals differ from each other as much as some of them from ties. 



as, naturalists have imagined they discern in certain species 

 other faculties, which appear to them essentially different, 

 and to which they have given the name of instinct. 



These are certain actions necessary to the preservation of Some of their 

 the species, but frequently altogether foreign to the apparent *o "scribe to™ 1 * 

 wants of the individuals, and often very complex ; which reason, 

 we cannot attribute to reason, without granting them a de- 

 gree of foresight and of knowledge, that every one would 

 hesitate to admit. Neither can they be attributed to imi- or imitation. 

 iation; since it appears impossible, that the individuals by 

 which they are practised, can have thus learned them, and 

 yet those of the same species constantly practice them nearly 

 in the same manner. And it is no less remarkable, that the These most r#. 



* Magazin Encyclopedique, February, 1807, p, 437. 



X 2 actions 



