5580 Reason and Instinct. 



distinguished from the brutes, which act by instinct, would probably 

 be much amazed if they could be induced to sit down, pen in hand, 

 and commit to paper a list of the undoubtedly instinctive actions of 

 any given wild animal or selection of animals, — amazed, I mean, not 

 by the wonderful nature of the actions registered, wonderful as many 

 of them would be, nor yet by the long list made out; but by the very 

 limited number they would be able to insert in the list. Take the fox, 

 the hare, the partridge, the sparrow, for instance, — creatures specified 

 because as familiarly known to us as any in the whole long list of 

 God's creatures, — and how many of their customary and habitual 

 doings may be put down under the head of instinct ? By instinct they 

 pair and copulate, they prepare for their young, they satisfy their own 

 hunger and thirst, they supply the similar wants of their young, they 

 dread danger, and so on. But what a countless train of actions (even 

 after setting aside all doubtful cases) is there in the record — imperfect 

 even when kept by the closest, most patient observer — of their lives, in 

 which, if they were human and not brute, we should never for an 

 instant dream of questioning the influential presence of comparison, 

 recollection, consideration, contrivance, calculation and other opera- 

 tions of understanding, of reason, acting in co-ordination with, possibly 

 even in dependence upon, instinct.* 



But I turn to a new line of consideration and argument, which also 

 may be found illustrative, and possibly confirmatory, of the doctrine 

 that instinct presupposes reason. In all the observations and remarks 

 hitherto advanced we have dealt with what are simply the every-day 

 actions of the brute, whether living in a state of nature, or more or less 

 influenced by the results of domestication ; and we have not so much 

 as alluded to the effects produced on him by special and careful, 

 training or instruction. From the moment, however, we enter upon 

 this new topic, strictly germane to our subject, a field of observation 

 and inquiry, of great interest, is opened to our regard. The results of 

 training or education, in the case of every animal on which it has 



* I quote the following from Mr. Couch, in illustration of the text, but without 

 intending to imply a perfect accordance of opinion with him all through: — "A pre- 

 dominant error in the minds of those who deny to the inferior animals the capacity of 

 reasoning, is the omitting to take into account a possibility of the existence of instinct 

 in connexion with it; or that it may lie at the foundation of that building of which 

 the rational faculty is the consummation." (' Illustrations,' p. 184.) And again, "In 

 the proportion in which it (a reasoning faculty in animals) exists I shall have to show 

 that its sole appropriation is as the servant of instinct, to guide the latter in its 

 development." — Id. p. 103. 



