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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



born infant seeks its mother's breast, and presses 

 it with its hand to force from it the nutritious 

 fluid ; it seizes and sucks the nipple, as the young 

 dog and the calf do the udder; the calf alter- 

 nately draws and repulses the teat; the puppy 

 presses by springing the udder of its dam, &e. 

 All these beings act thus, not because they have 

 calculated that these processes are necessary to 

 their preservation, but because nature meets their 

 ivants and has united the knowledge of them inti- 

 mately with their organisation. In all these cases, 

 there are no previous habits, no instruction, no ex- 

 perience. 



When, still later, we see the insects in their 

 metamorphoses, weave themselves an envelope; 

 when we see the bee, at his first coming out, seek 

 the willow and the strawberry, construct hexa- 

 gonal cells, as the bird builds his nest, and the 

 beaver, his hut ; when we see the bird bruise the 

 worm with his beak; and the monkey cut with 

 his teeth, the head of the coleoptera, (the 

 beetle,) before devouring him ; the hamster lay 

 up provisions; the dog conceal his superfluous 

 food ; the squirrel open the nut at the pointed 

 extremity, and detach the scales of the cone of 

 the savin at the base; the hog devour, with 

 avidity, the first acorn he finds; the goat throw 

 himself on the cytisus which he meets for the 

 first time; the hound, without any previous in- 

 struction, pursue and seize the boar ; the ferret, 

 though brought up on milk and in a cask, 

 become furious at the first sight of a rabbit; and 

 the rabbit, who likewise at the first glance recog- 

 nises in this animal his natural enemy; — we 

 must allow that all these actions show us the 

 result of instincts given to these individuals, and 

 without which they would ere long disappear 

 from the face of the earth. The conduct of ani- 

 mals in these circumstances, requires neither a 

 previous examination by the senses, nor an 

 innate idea of the object of their appetites, nor a 

 comparison and choice among several objects.* 

 How should they have an idea of that which they 

 have never in any manner experienced? In the 

 same way as a dish at the first impression, 

 pleases or disgusts us ; so animals and children 

 choose or reject the objects of the external 

 world, according to the laws of sympathy and 

 antipathy which exist between these same objects, 

 their nutritive organs, and their senses. 



To the same cause are owing the sensations 

 and emotions, which men term affections. Satis- 

 faction and discontent, pleasure and pain, joy 

 and sorrow, desire, chagrin, fear, shame, jealousy, 

 anger, etc., are so many states of our internal 

 organisation, which the animal and the man 

 do not determine, but which both feel before 

 having thought of them. These sentiments 

 spring from the natural disposition of the animal 

 and the man, without any concurrence of their 

 will ; and they are as decided, as strong, as vivid, 

 the first time, as after having been often re- 



* Wc have, in our remarks on " Instinct and Reason," 

 dwelt most fully upon the beauty of these " great facts ;" 

 and it is a source of real delight to find our views so 

 unconditionally confirmed by this great philosopher. 

 All these animals act by an instinct given them by the 

 Creator. Indeed, were it otherwise, they would, to use 

 the words of Dr. Gall, " ere long disappear from the face 

 of the earth altogether." We have watched these in- 

 stincts narrowly from our boyhood. — Ed. K. J. 



peated. All which passes on this occasion, is 

 an arrangement produced by nature, and calcu- 

 lated with reference to the external world for 

 the preservation of the animal and the man, 

 without any consciousness, reflection or active 

 participation, on the part of the individual. The 

 animal and the man are organised for anger, 

 hatred, grief, fear, jealousy, etc. ; because there 

 are objects and events, which, from their nature, 

 must be detested or loved, desired or feared. 



It is for this reason, that the different states of 

 the soul and its various affections, when they 

 have a certain degree of intensity, are accompa- 

 nied with peculiar external acts, such as gestures, 

 movements, attitudes, which, likewise, take place 

 involuntarily and without consciousness, but 

 which always correspond, agreeably to the design 

 of nature, to the preservation and the wants of 

 the individual. The limbs are drawn back- 

 wards, when one is threatened by a dangerous 

 object, though there has been no time to think of 

 the danger, and the means of escaping it. Do 

 we see an object on the point of crushing us, and 

 which we cannot avoid, we bend the back before 

 thinking of the resistance we offer in taking this 

 position. The infant who is still ignorant of the 

 existence of its mother, and of the cares which 

 she takes of it, cries when it is hungry, or when 

 it experiences any necessity. Puppies, though 

 destitute of hearing for the first fourteen days of 

 their life, and though not knowing that their 

 cries are heard, still cry, and thus succeed in 

 bringing their dam to their assistance. It is the 

 same with the affections of the adult being. The 

 expression and the gestures which accompany 

 these affections, have been calculated to refer 

 themselves, either solely to external objects, or 

 to analogous beings, which surround the animal 

 or the man, and to produce a reaction which 

 tends to preserve them. Neither man nor the 

 animal takes any other part in this, than to obey 

 the natural impulse which results from their 

 organisation. 



When man begins to exercise his faculties 

 with a distinct feeling of consciousness, of per- 

 sonal co-operation and will, each one is inclined 

 to imagine that he produces these faculties him- 

 self. Yet, if we first confine ourselves to con- 

 sidering the qualities common to the animal and 

 to man, the comparison established between 

 them does not permit us to doubt that these 

 faculties are innate. Now we find in animals a 

 number of propensities common to them with 

 man; that of the mutual loves of the soxes, of 

 the care of parents for their offspring, of attach- 

 ment, of mutual assistance, of sociability and 

 the conjugal union ; the propensity to peace and 

 war, that to mildness and cruelty ; of the plea- 

 sure found in being flattered; of the forgetfulness 

 and the recollection of ill treatment; we cannot 

 therefore imagine, that in man and in animals, 

 these qualities, wholly similar, should have a dif- 

 ferent origin. 



Let us admit, that these qualities are ennobled 

 in man; that the animal desire of propagating 

 the species is transformed in man to moral love ; 

 that the love of the females of animals for their 

 offspring, becomes in women the amiable virtue 

 which inspires their tenderness for their children ; 

 that the attachment of animals changes in man 



