Reason and Instinct 



0087 



guides his steps as unerringly as though his eye were fixed on 

 his bourne, or an automaton compass, self-explaining, moved on before 

 him ; I give a similar illustration from Dr. Livingstone : " The grass 

 at this place was so tall that the oxen became uneasy, and one night 

 the sight of a hj-ajna made them rush away into the forest to the east 

 of us. * * * . Our Bakwain lad had gone after them, but had lost 

 them in the rush through the flat, trackless forest. He remained 

 on their trail all the next day and all the next night. On Sunday 

 morning, as I was setting off in search of him, I found him near the 

 waggon. He had found the oxen late in the afternoon of Sattirday, 

 and had been obliged to stand by them all night. It was wonderful 

 how he managed without a compass and in such a country to find his 

 way home at all, bringing about forty oxen with him." — (Id. p. 168). 

 Now, this instinctive capacity of self-guidance is a characteristic 

 of no insignificant portion of the existing human inhabitants of the 

 globe. Many and numerous tribes in America, Africa and Australia, 

 are known to possess it in a greater or less degree, and thus present a 

 very remarkable instance of the existence and energetic operation in 

 the human species of pure, unquestionable Instinct. 



Again, as to Association. The lodges of the American Indians, the 

 kraals of the Hottentots and Caffres, the villages or towns of Dr. 

 Livingstone's route from the East Coast of Africa to the West, the 

 tribes of Australia possessing no fixed or permanent habitation, but 

 always living together — all tell the same tale — all deliver the same 

 doctrine. You never hear of individuals of savage or uncivilized 

 people living singly, in isolated seclusion from their fellows. Even 

 the outcasts from other tribes, fallen and degraded as they are as to 

 all that elevates humanity, as to all indeed that worthily characterises 

 humanity, though they scarcely know the use of fire, or recognise the 

 ties and sanctions of domestic life, yet herd together in their dens and 

 caves, live a life in common wherever and whatever the site of their 

 squalid common home may be. 



And lastly, to pass to the subject of Migration. This has been a 



left shortly before he lost himself, — and so put him again into the track he knew. 

 I have known the sportsman with his attendant, who almost knew every hollow and 

 track on the moor, obliged to sit down and wait the lifting of the fog which had come 

 on them unawares. And I have myself, on a narrow strip of moor which I had tra- 

 versed scores of times in all directions, and with a companion who knew it as well as 

 I did, missed my direction in crossing it, at the first attempt ffetlinif 45"^ too much to 

 the south, and the second as much to the north of my true course. 



