5742 Reason and Instinct. 



to modify some of Mr, Atkinson's modes of expression, and thus to 

 aid in the arrival at a sound general conclusion, than to dispute the 

 facts to which he has called attention, or the sentiments which he has 

 enforced. I conceive that the subject, confessedly obscure, may be 

 cleared by placing it in a somewhat different light. 



1. Is reason, as the attribute of man, a compound of many ele- 

 ments ? We do not come at any clearer or more useful notion of it 

 by speaking of it as " the intellectual essence." For the purpose of 

 the argument, I should mean by reason and the intellectual essence 

 the same thing. I include under these terms the same processes of 

 thought. Is it, then, a compound of several or many elements? Mr. 

 Atkinson implies it is. He speaks of it as comprehending memory, 

 comparison, abstraction, contrivance, calculation ; and he intimates 

 that there are "other operations of understanding" (Zool. 5580), 

 which, however, he does not name. Taking those he does name, may 

 we now ask, Do not brutes remember ? — do they not compare, distin- 

 guish, contrive ? If they do, and who will dispute or deny it, it is 

 admitted that they possess some of the elements of reason, and those 

 not the least important to man. The question of the approach of the 

 brutes in reasoning power to man is therefore a question of degree, 

 for testing which we want exact measures. Wanting these measures, 

 we can arrive at no very exact or important general conclusions, no 

 safe rules beyond those of a limited experience and imperfect obser- 

 vation. I understand all that Mr. Atkinson says, and wishes to main- 

 tain, to be in harmony with this remark ; and he will further agree 

 with the observation that the races of animals, both as individuals 

 and as species, differ from one another in the powers which they 

 possess, and the degree in which powers are acquired or developed, 

 as they differ also from men, and men from one another, by bounda- 

 ries indistinctly marked, and very difficult to trace and describe. 



2. The language in Mr. Atkinson's last paper which seems to me 

 most open to criticism is that which relates to instinct. At one time 

 he speaks of instinct as if it were a known and determinate faculty, 

 or as an ascertained condition of many combined faculties which rea- 

 son subserves or is in harmony with ; at another time he implies that 

 there are many different kinds of instinct. He speaks of the instincts 

 peculiar to man, as if man had some instincts distinct from, yet more 

 or less analogous to, the instincts characteristic of the other animated 

 beings, like ourselves denizens of earth and time. No authority, no 

 custom reconciles me to such language. It may be used by Sir B. 

 Brodie in his recent ( Physiological Researches,' by Mr. Couch, by Dr. 



