KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



263 



Without the innatcness of the faculties of ani- 

 mals, how can we explain the differences of 

 individuals, which have absolutely the same 

 manner of living? When, in a forest, one 

 nightingale sings better and more assiduously 

 than the rest ; when in a poultry yard one cock 

 is more ardent in fight, and another more pacific; 

 when one hen, one cow, are better mothers than 

 the other hens and the other cows- can we at- 

 tribute these phenomena to education? 



How can we comprehend why certain indi- 

 viduals are raised above their fellows, and 

 become, as it were, the geniuses of their species? 

 Locke's translator, Coste, speaks of a dog, who, 

 in winter, whenever his comrades were lying 

 about the fire, so as to prevent his approach, set 

 himself about making a noise in the court; and 

 while his comrades ran thither, he hastened to 

 enter into the house, took a good place near the 

 fire, and let those bark whom he had cheated by 

 this stratagem. He had frequent recourse to it, 

 and yet he always gained his ends, because no 

 one of the other dogs had sagacity enough to 

 discover his trick. l)upont de Nemours had a 

 cow, that, to procure the whole flock a more 

 abundant supply of food, adopted the plan of 

 throwing down, with her horns, the fence with 

 which the field was surrounded. None of the 

 other cows knew how to imitate her example; 

 and when they were near the fence, waited im- 

 patiently the arrival of their conductress. I have 

 sometimes met mocking-birds who perfectly imi- 

 tated the birds of the neighborhood, even to the 

 quail and the cuckoo ; while the others surrounded 

 by the same birds, could only imitate a small 

 number, or were limited to their own peculiar 

 song. 



In fine, if the instincts, propensities, and facul- 

 ties of animals, are not determined by their 

 organisation, how can you explain the fact, that 

 these instincts, propensities and faculties, are 

 always found in harmony with their external 

 organs ? What chance should give to each ani- 

 mal, factitious instincts, faculties, always in har- 

 mony with their teeth , claws, horns, &c? Will 

 you maintain that nature acts without object, in 

 giving to the beaver strong gnawing teeth and a 

 flat tail; to the intelligent elephant his trunk; 

 to the sanguinary tiger his terrible claws and 

 teeth? 



Or, will you tell me, with those who do nos 

 acknowledge final causes, that the bear, the 

 tiger, and the elephant, employ their instruments 

 for the sole reason that they find them fitted for 

 certain purposes? the mole lives underground 

 because her eyes are too small; the feet of the 

 swan are natural oars, and therefore he chooses 

 of necessity his abode in the water. Neither 

 man nor animals have any limb, any instrument, 

 in order to use it, but they use them because 

 they have them. 



Who does not see that, on this supposition, 

 there would be no connection between the in- 

 terior and exterior, between the instruments and 

 the active force? And would you forget, that 

 the boar strikes with his jaws before his tusks 

 are formed? the young bull and the kid with 

 their head, before their horns have appeared? 

 that the bird shakes his wings before he has any 

 feathers? Take from the lion his teeth and 



claws, and give them to the sheep, and see if by 

 this means you will change the lion into a sheep, 

 and the sheep into a lion. 



We must then admit, that each animal, in con- 

 sequence of its organisation, has received from 

 nature ingenious aptitudes, instincts, propensities, 

 proper determinate talents; and that the power 

 of things external, of instruction and education, 

 is limited to giving it more or less modification. 



The hypothesis of the tabula rasa, and of the 

 creative power of education — is it more admissi- 

 ble for the human race? 



To attempt to write in a satisfactory manner 

 on the influence of institutions and of education, 

 would be undertaking volumes. I must there- 

 fore confine myself to my object, and show, by 

 some general considerations, how far the in- 

 fluence of human efforts extends over the moral 

 and intellectual character of man. 



The antagonists of innate dispositions persist 

 in saying, that man, being from his birth sur- 

 rounded by men, appropriates to himself their 

 faculties and their character. 



Might I not ask whence the first men, who 

 were surrounded only by beasts, obtained the 

 faculties, and how they created or invented 

 them? Even at the present time, are not many 

 men, in their infancy, more surrounded by ani- 

 mals than by men? Why do not these children 

 receive the instincts and propensities of animals 

 as well as the faculties of man? If children had 

 not the same dispositions as their parents and 

 instructors, how could they be capable of receiv- 

 ing their instruction and profiting by their ex- 

 ample? In the first years, when children are 

 almost solely in the hands of their mothers, of 

 nurses, and of women, boys always distinguish 

 themselves from girls, and one child is perfectly 

 distinct from another. After this period nothing 

 can give rise to a resemblance between the 

 faculties of the man and the woman, nor between 

 those of different individuals. In line, do we 

 know any art by which an instructor can create 

 in children envy, love, attachment, anger, good- 

 ness or wickedness, ambition, pride, &c. ? Do we 

 know how to create any talent? This power 

 so little belongs to man, that even when we are 

 our own absolute masters, we cannot escapa the 

 changes which the succession of years produces 

 in our moral and intellectual faculties. Every- 

 thing confirms the truth of what Herder says 5 

 that education cannot take place except by imi- 

 tation, and consequently by the passage from the 

 original to the copy. The imitator must have 

 the faculty of receiving what is communicated 

 to him; and of transforming it into his nature, as 

 he does the meats by which he is nourished. 

 But the manner in which he receives it, the 

 means by which he appropriates it to himself 

 and employs it, can only be determined by the 

 faculties of the receiver; whence it follows that 

 the education of our species, is, in some sort, the 

 result of a double action, to wit; of him who 

 gives, and of him who receives it. Thus, when 

 we see that men take the form which we wish to 

 give them — is it not a legitimate inference, that 

 these forms have heen created in them? They 

 have borrowed them from other men endowed 

 with the same dispositions. ' 



