Reason and Instinct. 



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viction that it would be a work of supererogation. I must not, how- 

 ever, altogether omit to notice the apprehension which all the 

 families, and tribes and nations of the human race, in all ages and in 

 all countries, have been found to entertain in some form or other, 

 though possibly more or less disguised and obscured, of the existence 

 of a Supernatural Being and of a future state of existence. This 

 most remarkable fact is, with scarcely a dissentient voice, attributed 

 to an inward utterance or impulse of Nature ; that is, in other words, 

 but with scarcely a shade of variation in meaning, the apprehension 

 so universal, and so remarkable in its essential identity as well as its 

 universality is an instinctive apprehension. And in so far as it is 

 justly so called, it would tend to justify the expression, " An Instinct 

 peculiar to man." 



Such then are some of the observations and reasonings on which 

 our first position depends for its substantiation ; but, before taking 

 leave of it, I may be permitted to append a few sentences from Sir B. 

 Brodie's ' Psychol. Researches :' — We cannot but suppose," we find 

 him saying at p. 199, "that when man first began to exist, and for 

 some generations afterwards, the range of his Instincts must have been 

 much more extensive than it is at the present time. We see the 

 infant first deriving nourishment from his mother's breast, but when 

 the period of lactation is over, the experience of his parents supplies 

 him with the fit kind of food derived from other sources. The 

 absence of such experience must, in the first instance, have been 

 supplied by a faculty which he does not now possess (but which we 

 see manifested in the lower animals), directing him to seek that which 

 is nutritious, and to avoid that which is not so, or which is actually 

 ])oisonous. It is easy to conceive that much besides in the habits 

 and actions of human beings, which seem now to be the results of 

 experience and imitation, was originally to be traced to Instinct. 

 And, indeed, there are many things which cannot well be explained 

 otherwise. * * * * The majority of instincts belonging to man 

 resemble those of the inferior animals, inasmuch as they relate to the 

 preservation of the individual and the continuation of the species. 

 To these the social Instinct is superadded, not indeed peculiar to 

 man, but in him attaining a greater degree of development than in 

 other creatures." 



J. C. Atkinson. 



Danby Parsonage, Giosmont, York, 

 March, 1858. 



