Reason and InslincL 5567 



as that which exists between the kangaroo* or the booby, and the 

 elephant, the dog or the fox. And yet we can no more, on the one 

 hand, maintain that the whole human race is not, at least, potentially, 

 gifted with reason in its highest sense, than we can, on the other, 

 assert that instinct is not perpetually and powerfully at work in every 

 human being; albeit, in the one direction, little apparent by the side 

 of intellectual lustre, in the other dividing, or, as but too often, even 

 predominating in the empire of the mind. We know that instinct and 

 reason do co-exist in the human being; that the loftiest intellect does 

 not exclude the merest instincts; but we do not know that the 

 co-existence between instinct, wherever met with, and reason is not 

 necessary and inevitable. 



For my own part, I incline to the belief that where there is apparent 

 instinct, there is or may be also, in however small a degree, a reasoning 

 power, whether latent or brought out and developed. I see no reason 

 in the nature of things why it should not be so ; and I see further that 

 every observation on the habits and manners and actions of animals — 

 few as those observations are, comparatively with what they might be, 

 and with the vast number of living creatures, and few indeed as con- 

 trasted with the requirements of the merest empirical knowledge, far 

 more of exact science or accurate discrimination — tends, in its measure 

 and degree, to set up and establish such a theory on a sound and 

 sufficiently broad basis. And in this connexion I think the following 

 considerations (adverted to but postponed in the earlier part of our 

 inquiry) are important and well worth attentive pondering. 



The " mental principle " or " mind " either is or is not " of the 

 same essence ; " " essentially of the same nature " f in animals not 

 human as in human beings. In what way, and by the use of what 

 arguments, the negative is to be maintained, and, still more, made 

 good, I must say, I do not see. A simple denial, however positive and 

 dogmatical, of the affirmative position cannot but be nonsensically 

 insufficient. No earnest, moderately candid inquirer could for a 

 moment think of proposing that method of solving the question, any 

 more than be satisfied with it if proposed by another. But all the 

 phenomena observed make for the affirmative. Every action per- 

 formed by an animal, evincing the presence of reasoning faculties in 

 the animal's mind and the exercise of those faculties, affords a pre- 

 sumption, as it seems to me, not simply that there must be reasoning 



* Keferrecl to by Broilie as "having a very low degree of intelligence." 

 f Sec Psych. Enquiries, pp. 167, 169. 



