6198 



Reason and Instinct. 



infonnalion. Thus I believe it may be stated that the sources of 

 iiifomiation are both few and bare as to the changes in psychical 

 development which accompanied the progressive advances towards 

 and in the early civilization achieved by our own nation, or by the 

 French or German nations. Perhaps something of what we need 

 ought to be met with in the history of the Russian Empire, or rather 

 of portions of its subjects. Certainly some of those subjects have 

 emerged from at least comparative barbarism quite within the epoch 

 dealt with by modern history, and I believe that whenever we can 

 meet with authentic accounts of such emergence we shall see there is 

 much to support the view we have enunciated in our present proposi- 

 tion. Unfortunately those accounts are both rare and scanty. 



Doubtless we may permit our eye to rest on many a tribe or nation 

 in a state of partial and incomplete civilization, certainly more or less 

 removed from the savage state. But almost without exception we 

 lack authentic accounts of the remote antecedents of these tribes or 

 peoples. They may have been, for ages beyond the memory of his- 

 tory, in a state such that it would be difficult to decide accurately 

 whether it were one of progress or of regression as to essential civili- 

 zation. Such, very probably, is the case with the people so happily 

 termed by the Times' special correspondent, a few weeks since, 

 " quaint barbarians ;" and very much the same remarks may be made 

 in reference to the numerous widely-spread Nomade* tribes or hordes 

 who people so large a portion of " High Central Asia," and, omitting 

 others, to the inhabitants of certain important and populous regions 

 in Northern and Central Africa. How long their habits have been 

 Nomadic, from what source they originally sprung, and whether the 

 assumption of Nomadic habits was a step in a backward or forward 

 direction, are all questions involved in much obscurity. 



But if we are unable to trace backward the advances made to the 

 comparatively civilized from the savage state in such cases as those 

 just instanced, it is of course obvious that we can be in no position to 

 pronounce upon what have been the accompanying changes in the 

 sway of instinctive impulses and the influence of rational determina- 

 tion, as illustrated in the experience of any of those peoples which may 

 become the subject of inquiry in such matters. The most promising 

 course open to us appears to be to ascertain as nearly as possible 

 what general rule as to the presence and influence of Instinct in un- 

 civilized or savage man may be laid down in conformity with the 



* The arj^iimciit derived from the form and dimuusioiis of the skull I postpone 

 for cousidtiatiuu in a future division oi' the pai'er. 



