NOTES AND QUERIES. 397 



animals. Thus Paley defines an instinct as " a propensity, prior to 

 experience, and independent of instruction." Naturalists have also 

 been swayed by a similar predilection. Blumenbach went so far as to 

 state : " Man then alone is destitute of what are called instincts." He 

 also maintained that " instinct always remains the same, and is not 

 advanced by cultivation, nor is it smaller or weaker in the young 

 animal than in the adult." Reason, on the contrary, he held, could 

 be compared to a developing germ. Waitz, the anthropologist, urged 

 that " we must not, however, estimate too lightly what animals really 

 learn from experience. The mysterious word ' instinct ' conceals, in 

 the psychical life of animals, more intellectuality and less mechanism 

 than is usually assumed." But he perhaps goes too far when he 

 states : — " Just as the civilized man conquers the savage, so does the 

 latter overpower the brute, not so much by physicalas by mental 

 force. He uses their instincts in a variety of modes to deceive them, 

 imitates their sounds, catches them by baits, and hunts each species 

 according to its peculiar habits." But the last sentence at least would 

 apply to 'most animals in their necessitarian war upon one another. 

 It is possible that when using the term " instinct " we are expressing 

 the limit of our own reason. The word has become inseparable to our 

 language, and is used in a loose way, as when we speak of a hasty 

 judgment or action as " instinctive," or describe one with whom we 

 do not agree as " an unreasonable man." — Ed.] 



