LAMARCK'S THEORY OF DESCENT 



333 



performing certain intelligent acts, it is still more 

 often the inner feeling and the inclinations origi- 

 nating from habits which decide, without choice, the 

 acts which animals perform. 



" Moreover, although the executing power of move- 

 ments and of actions, as also the cause which directs 

 them, should be entirely internal, it is not well, as has 

 been done,* to limit to internal impressions the 

 primary cause or provocation of these acts, with the 

 intention to restrict to external impressions that 

 which provokes intelligent acts ; for, from what few 

 facts are known bearing on these considerations, we 

 are convinced that, either way, the causes which 

 arouse and provoke acts are sometimes internal and 

 sometimes external, that these same causes give rise 

 in reality to impressions all of which act internally. 



" According to the idea generally attached to the 

 word instinct the faculty which this word expresses 

 is considered as a light which illuminates and guides 

 animals in their actions, and which is with them what 

 reason is to us. No one has shown that instinct can 

 be a force which calls into action; that this force 

 acts effectively without any participation of the will, 

 and that it is constantly directed by acquired inclina- 

 tions." 



There are, the author states, two kinds of causes 

 which can arouse the inner feeling (organic sense) — 

 namely, those which depend on intellectual acts, and 

 those which, without arising from it, immediately ex- 

 cite it and force it to direct its power of acting in the 

 direction of acquired inclinations. 



" These are the only causes of this last kind, which 



* Richerand, Physiologic, vol ii. p. 151. 



