INSTINCT AND REASON. 683 



stinctively, and that they were not suddenly or specially 

 endowed with instincts. 



Kev. J. J. Murphy^ in his work entitled " Habit and In- 

 telligence," seems to regard instinct as the sum of inherited 

 habits, remarking that " reason differs from instinct only 

 in -being conscious. Instinct is unconscious reason, and 

 reason is conscious instinct." This seems equivalent to 

 saying that most of the instincts of the present generation 

 of animals is unconscious automatism, but that in the begin- 

 ning, in the ancestors of the present races, instincts were 

 more plastic than now, such traits as were useful to the or- 

 ganism being preserved and crystallized, as it were, into the 

 instinctive acts of their lives. This does not exclude the 

 idea that animals, while in most respects automata, occa- 

 sionally perform acts which transcend instinct ; that they 

 are still modified by circumstances, especially those species 

 which in any way come in contact with man ; are still in a de- 

 gree free agents, and have unconsciously learned, by success 

 or failure, to adapt themselves to new surroundings. This 

 view is strengthened by the fact that there is a marked de- 

 gree of individuality among animals. Some individuals of 

 the same species are much more intelligent than others, 

 they act as leaders in difEerent operations. Among dogs, 

 horses, and other domestic animals, those of dull intellect 

 are led or excelled by those of greater intelligence, and this 

 indicates that they are not simply automata, but are also in 

 a degree, or within their own sphere, free agents. 



