KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



obliged to admit attention to be the generating 

 principle of all the faculties. The attention of 

 Laromiguiere is the reflection of Locke. Mean- 

 while no one disputes that sensation, reflection, 

 attention, are innate faculties. But do these facul- 

 ties give rise to a specific propensity or talent? 



Let us see how attention is exercised in animals 

 and in man; and the reader will judge whether 

 the faculties, instincts, and propensities, are an 

 effect of attention ; or whether attention is the 

 effect of an innate instinct, propensity, or talent. 



Both men and animals are endowed with dif- 

 ferent instincts, propensities, and talents. With 

 each instinct, propensity, and talent, nature has 

 established determinate relations in the external 

 world. There is, for example, a determinate re- 

 lation between the silk- worm and the leaf of the 

 mulberry -tree ; between the ferret and the rabbit ; 

 between the duck and the water; between the 

 hen and her chickens ; between man and woman, 

 &c. It is thus, that every living being has cer- 

 tain points of contact with determinate external 

 objects. The more energetic the instinct, the 

 propensity, or the talent, the more numerous are 

 these points of contact; the more intimate are 

 they— and the greater, consequently, the affinity 

 of each quality to its determinate object. 



When an animal or a man is excited by the 

 relation which exists between him and his rela- 

 tive object, the man or the animal is found in a 

 state of attention. The hungry fox scents the 

 hare; the falcon, gliding through the air, perceives 

 the lark; they are then attentive. The philosopher 

 is struck with a happy idea; he is then attentive. 

 Now, you will explain why t each animal has the 

 habit of fixing his attention on a different deter- 

 minate object, and why each different man fixes 

 his on different objects. The roe-buck and the 

 pigeon regard with indifference, without attention, 

 the serpent and the frog, objects of the attention 

 of the hog and the stork. The child fixes his 

 attention on playthings; the woman, on her chil- 

 dren and on dress; men, according to their indi- 

 vidual dispositions, on women, horses, battles, the 

 phenomena of nature, &c. Hence, the difference 

 which travellers make, in their descriptions of 

 the same country and the same nation; hence, the 

 diversity of the judgments which different men 

 pass on the same objects ; and as La Bruyere says, 

 if each reader expunged, or exchanged according 

 to his fancy, everything in a book repugnant to 

 his taste, or, which he judged unworthy his atten- 

 tion, there would not be a word of the author's 

 left in it. 



Every instinct, propensity, and talent, has, 

 therefore, its attention. Attention is, therefore, 

 an effect, an attribute of a pre-existing innate 

 faculty; and anything rather than the cause of 

 this faculty. 



If instincts, propensities, and talents are feeble, 

 their relations to their objects are equally so, and 

 neither man nor animal will have a long or a 

 strong attention. It is for this reason that, in 

 infancy, when certain organs are still undeveloped, 

 and, in old age, when the organs have lost their 

 energy, we regard with coldness the same objects, 

 which, at the age of manhood, excite our liveliest 

 interest. 



There is no attention, not even the possibility 

 of attention, where there is no interest, no pro- 



pensity, no talent, in relation with external ob- 

 jects. Who will inspire the horse with attention 

 for the monuments, which we erect to glory and 

 to immortality? or, the ram, for our arts and 

 sciences? To what purpose to attribute, with 

 Vicq d' Azyr, the want of attention of monkeys, 

 to their turbulence? Show one a female, or a good 

 fruit, and you will find him attentive. To wish 

 to make him attentive to your lectures on neat- 

 ness or decency, is to forget that his organisation 

 is imperfect in comparison with that of man; and 

 that there exists no point of contact between these 

 qualities, and the innate qualities of the monkey. 

 The same thing takes place in idiots. 



No one, I suppose, will be tempted to derive 

 from attention, the ingenious aptitudes, instincts, 

 and propensities of animals. Who would main- 

 tain, that the beaver, the squirrel, the loriot, and 

 the caterpillar, build, only in consequence of an 

 attention, which they must have directed to these 

 objects when they were still unknown to them? 

 Even among men, genius ordinarily commences 

 its great works, as it were by instinct, without 

 being aware of its own talent. 



In other respects, Heave attention and exercise, 

 as well as. education, possessed of all their rights. 

 It is not enough for one to be endowed with 

 active faculties; exercise and application are in- 

 dispensable to acquire facility and skill. To 

 awaken the attention of men of coarse minds, we 

 must either make a strong impression on their 

 senses,* or we must limit ourselves to the ideas 

 and objects with which they are familiar; that 

 is to say, with which they have already points of 

 contact. 



These considerations will suffice to reduce to 

 its just value the merit of the abstraction so much 

 cherished by philosophers,— a ttention. 



Can Pleasure and Pain produce any Moral 

 Quality, or Intellectual Faculty? 



Some rest on the doctrine of Aristippus, who 

 explains, in an arbitrary and very inexact man- 

 ner, the principle of his master, Socrates, with 

 regard to the happiness of man ; to regard desire 

 and aversion, pleasure and pain, as the sources, 

 not only of our actions, but likewise of all our 

 qualities and all our faculties. 



Animals, children, and half-idiots, are as sen- 

 sible to desire and aversion, to pleasure and pain, 

 as adult and reasonable men. They ought, then, 

 according to the opinion of Aristippus, to possess 

 as many qualities, the one as the other. It is 

 with desire and aversion as with attention. Eor 

 what object does a man or an animal feel desire? 

 Is it not for the object, which is most in harmony 

 with his propensities and his talents ? The setter 

 has a desire for the chase: the beaver for building, 

 &c. Such a man tastes the most lively pleasure 

 in generously pardoning offences ; another rejoices 

 when he succeeds in satisfying his vengeance; this 

 man places his happiness in the possession of 

 riches ; the pride of this man is a philosophy which 

 elevates him above human vanities. Desire and 

 aversion, pleasure and pain, have, therefore, their 

 origin in the activity of the different innate pro- 

 pensities and faculties. 



* Propensities. 



