566<f On the (Connexion of Reason with Instinct. 



which led to that conclusion, might be induced to believe that I had 

 advanced the opinion, that, in creatures inferior to man, the faculty 

 termed reason is intrinsically lower in its nature than the quality 

 bearing the same name in the human race; and consequently that, 

 after all that had been said, the question only was, whether a certain 

 faculty in animals should bear the name of reason, or might require 

 the invention of a new descriptive designation. 



Those who have read the * Illustrations' with attention will be in no 

 danger of falling into this mistake ; but to those who have not done 

 so it is proper for me to say, that, in the work in question, it has been 

 my wish to show the fact, — that whilst, in animals generally, instinct 

 is so strong as to be the governing principle of their actions, yet that 

 still the faculty properly termed reason has a powerful influence 

 within them, — although, in its habitual exercise, it is only employed 

 in bringing the promptings of their instinct to a more successful con- 

 clusion. And what other than this is the case when man himself 

 permits himself to be overcome by his bodily appetites ? It is then 

 that his station becomes degraded from the high standing in which 

 the exercise of his reason as the governing influence would have 

 maintained him, and in this fallen condition I am compelled to say 

 of him, in the same sense as of the brute, that his reason has become 

 the servant of his instinct; the important difference being that, in one 

 case the condition is unnatural and artificial, while the other was 

 intended by the Creator, and is in perfect conformity with His 

 laws. 



That I may not occupy the pages of the ' Zoologist' with this ex- 

 planation only, and, at the same time, that I may afford an illustrative 

 example of the exercise of this faculty of reason in carrying out the 

 instinct of self-preservation, I will add an account of the proceedings 

 of a hare, as they were attentively noted by a good observer, involving 

 as they do, the consideration of several independent propositions, all 

 of which must have been regarded in the mind of the animal in a very 

 rapid manner, in the moment when her fears were leading her to escape 

 for her life. The deep impression of the poet's words — 



" You know my feet betray my flight" — 



were never more fully illustrated, to which is to be added the persua- 

 sion that, in the hastiness of pursuit, the dogs, however keenly scented, 

 would not be likely to distinguish the impressions made on the ground 

 by tracks in one direction from those in another : the whole matter 

 resolving itself into the conclusion, that it was more safe to trust for 



