Reason and Instinct. 



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llie language which speaks of him as a creature of Instinct, or of his 

 instinctive qualities or processes, or of his various instincts, — except 

 in so far as this latter ex]jression is open to the emendation admitted 

 above, — calls for systematic defence, except on the ground that Mr. 

 Tagart "objects" to both the one and the other: but having to 

 maintain that doctrine, and being inclined to adopt this language, I 

 should be disposed to distinguish carefully between mere desires and 

 true Instincts or operations of Instinct. 



To make one more special reference to Mr. Tagart's paper. He 

 writes (Zool. 5743), 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 de- 

 sire, like all other animated beings. ... Is there anything special in 

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

 worthy the name of an instinct ? " The answer to this question — and 

 it is strange a logician did not foresee it — is only too easy after the 

 admission in the first period of the passage just quoted. If the desire to 

 live in society is as much an instinct in man as it is in any of the 

 creatures named, — and it needs not to be more so, — there in some- 

 thing " special " in that desire to " make it worthy to be called an 

 instinct;" and that something is this, — that it is not a mere simple 

 desire in the case of either of the creatures named, or of any other of 

 the social or gregarious animals. It is much more : it is a necessity ; 

 a desire or impulse which they cannot resist, which they most certainly 

 never attempt to resist: in other words, it is " a determination given 



* I append Sir B. Brodie's definition of Instinct. " Instinct is a principle by 

 which animals are induced, independently of experience and reasoning, to the per- 

 formance of certain voluntary acts, which are necessary to their preservation as indi- 

 viduals, or the continuance of the speciis, or in some other way convenient to them." 

 — Psych. Researches, 187, And I add the following extract that the passage criticized 

 by Mr. Tagart may be seen in connexion with its context. " Man could not exist as 

 a solitary being. He has neither swiftness of feet nor any natural means of offence 

 and defence, which would enable him to compete with the buffalo, the lion or the wolf. 

 It would have been of little avail to him if the Creator had left it to himself to learn, 

 by hard experience and any wisdom of his own, that he can procure his own safety 

 and his means of subsistence only by associating with others. The desire to live in 

 society is as much an instinct in him," Sec. — Id. lUti. 



