300 



I.VSTIXCT OF ANIMALS, 



markable in 

 animals appa- 

 rently least in- 

 telligent. 



Balance of rea- 

 son and instinct 



These actions 

 ascribed to an 

 internal im- 

 pulse. 



Hypothesis. 



This dees not 

 lead to the doc- 

 trine of innate 

 ideas, 



actions which bear no relation to the degree of ordinary 

 understanding are more singular, more intelligent, and 

 more disinterested, in nroportion as the animals th*t execute 

 them belong to classes of a lower order, and in every thing 

 else more stupid. It is among thednsects. mqlluscae, and 

 worms, that we observe the most admirable instincts. It 

 seems as if instinct and reason were two faculties made to 

 compensate and supply the want of each other ; as on fcher 

 occasions fecundity compensates the wan* of streng . or 

 long life. It is even by a due balance of reason, it itinct, 

 and physical qualities, as acuteness of the senses or bodily 

 strength, that the species are continued. 



Naturalists have imagined therefore, that animals endued 

 with instinct perform their peculiar actions by virtue of an 

 internal impulse, independent of experience, foresight, 

 education, and all exterior agents ; in other words, that it 

 is their organization, which of itself determines them to act 

 thus. This conclusion has been adopted by almost all ob- 

 servers : and if they have differed, it is only in explaining 

 the manner, in which the organization can impart this de- 

 termination. The following is one of these hypotheses. 



The want or desire of a certain action can be occasioned 

 only by sensations, or remembrances of sensations ; in a 

 word by images. It is not necessary, however, that a sen- 

 sation should arise from without, for every external sensa- 

 tion requires interior movements of the brain and nerves, 

 without which it would not have taken place: but these in- 

 terior movements may originate in the organs themselves, 

 without any external action, as is frequently the case in re- 

 verie, and in various diseases; nothing therefore prevents 

 certain animals from being so organized, that internal move- 

 ments shall regularly arise in them capable of producing 

 certain sensations or images, and that these images shall 

 imperiously determine their will to certain actions. 



This hypothesis appears to have nothing'in common with 

 that of innate ideas, the object of which is only general or 

 abstract ideas : for they, who justly deny, that the gen nil 

 ideas of man are innate, have never pretended to assert, that 

 man cannot have sensations from interior movements of his 

 own organs, and without the intervention of external bo- 

 dies ; an assertion, that daily experience would have refuted. 



Neitlur 



