Reason and Instinct. 5743 



Prichard, by Dr. Butler, and, because so used, may be respectfully 

 heard. But it does not satisfy. We may still ask what is meant by 

 it. Say, if you please, with Sir B. Brodie, that " the desire to live in 

 society is as much an instinct in man as it is in the bee, the ant, the 

 beaver, or the prairie dog; " but it is no more so. It is no more an 

 instinct than any other desire, than all desire, the desire to sit, lie or 

 sleep when weary, to eat when hungry, to drink when thirsty, to 

 have more clothes or get nearer fire when cold ; it is no more than 

 saying that man is the creature of desire, or subject to desire, like all 

 other animated beings. Desire it is which puts him into action, and, 

 in common with the humblest creatures around him, he continues 

 through life subject to its influence. Is there anything special in the 

 desire to live in society to make it more than other desires worthy the 

 name of an instinct ? 



I object to the application of the term instinct in any sense to man, 

 whether to the parts, functions and attributes of his bodily frame, or 

 to the emotions of his moral nature (dependent as I believe these to 

 be on the state of society in which he is found and the education to 

 which he has been subjected, at least in all the most important and 

 considerable respects deserving philosophical attention), or to the 

 powers and attributes of his mind in humble or lofty development. I 

 know of no instincts, properly speaking, peculiar to man, peculiar in 

 the correct sense of the word, that is, not common with him to any 

 other animated beings. You may call all the functions of his animal 

 frame, all the emotions and powers natural to him in a given position 

 or in a certain stage of development, instinctive, if you please so to 

 call them. But it is not instructive ; may I not say it is injudicious 

 and confusing ? Surely it is the peculiarity of man not only to be 

 conscious of the ends which he pursues, and of the methods by which 

 he attains them, but to be able to give an account of these ends and 

 methods, so as to instruct his fellows. He not only knows and 

 remembers how the various objects and materials of nature affect him, 

 he is not only aware and conscious of the processes of thought and 

 contrivances of action which are involved in whatever he does or 

 attains, but he can describe what he feels and knows, and, so far as his 

 acts and plans are voluntary, at will or pleasure he can repeat them. 

 Above all, he communicates with his fellows by fixed and agreed 

 signs. In constructing a house, a ship, a railroad, a Nasmyth ham- 

 mer, in all that is most important and peculiar to him, he proceeds, 

 therefore, not by instinct, which is, according to my view, an impulse 

 or endowment of nature, often called blind, and of which we can give 



