Reason and Instinct. 5737 



along with them ; and it is scarcely anything I want of them except 

 fowls, turtle and fish, and other articles of provisions ; for hunger is 

 the great difficulty with the traveller in the Upper Amazons. 



Henry Walter Bates. 



857. 



Remarks on the Necessity of precise Definitions in Attempts to Dis- 

 tinguish Reason and Instinct. By the Rev. Edward Tagart, 

 F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. 



I have read with great interest and pleasure the Rev. J. C. Atkin- 

 son's paper in the 'Zoologist' on the subject of Reason and Instinct. 

 Although it seems to be in some respects too metaphysical for a work 

 devoted to Natural History, yet, as all sciences are connected, and all 

 are advanced by the use of distinct terms significant of distinct ideas, 

 perhaps you will allow one who has hitherto been more of a meta- 

 physician than a naturalist to offer one or two suggestions, in 

 reference to Mr. Atkinson's paper, which may help still further to 

 clear away difficulties and harmonize discordant modes of expression 

 on points confessedly obscure. Possibly a few brief remarks on the 

 same subject by a different hand may open to Mr. Atkinson himself 

 some vistas of reflection to w 7 hich his glances have not hitherto been 

 directed, — some paths of investigation which he has not been tempted 

 to tread. 



The question, as Mr. Atkinson has discussed it, seerns to be very 

 much this, — How far are animals, or creatures whom we are accus- 

 tomed to speak of as guided by instinct, participants of reason, which 

 is the characteristic of man ? It may be a further question, — How 

 far is man, as a reasoning being, assisted by the instincts, as we call 

 them, of the lower orders of being ? 



But there is a prior question essential to the discussion ; that is, — 

 What do we mean by instinct and by reason ? Do we know what we 

 are talking about when we use these terms ? I submit that both are 

 terms of ignorance. With regard to the first term, instinct, that it is 

 so may be most easily shown. We say the bee constructs its cell, 

 the bird its nest, the spider its web, the beaver its house, by instinct, 

 because we know nothing of any process of calculation, observation 

 or anticipation, which these creatures go through. Home Tooke 

 would say Instinct is a Latin participle, derived probably from 

 XV. 3 E 



