Reason and Instinct, 



6203 



already had occasion to notice, it naturally suggests both a compari- 

 son with the instincts of a predaceous animal similarly engaged, and 

 the conclusion that in both cases the phenomena observed are due to 

 the same operative cause. 



Beyond this, those of the pursuits of the peoples designated, which 

 may be described as the Nomadic proper, call for the exercise of 

 some of their instinctive faculties in preponderance over their intel- 

 lectual ; and in their quest of pasturage or w^ater for their manifold 

 flocks and herds one is reminded again of the instinctof wild creatures, 

 in that operation of it, namely, by which the undomesticated conge- 

 ners of the animals these Nomades tend are guided when under the 

 pressure of the wants in question ; and not less so in the foresight 

 and precaution against the attacks of predatory animals, so strongly 

 suggestive of the similar foresight and precaution practised alike by 

 the wild animal and the wild man. 



T think, too, we may observe an approximation to the peculiar 

 instinct of Local Direction or Self-guidance seen in the Red Man, in 

 the apparent readiness with which they direct or guide a stranger to 

 a distant place, only the general direction or bearings of which they are 

 acquainted with. In Mr. Atkinson's interesting ' Travels in Siberia 

 and Mongolia' the reader finds perpetual, and occasionally very 

 striking, illustrations of the several points we have thus successively 

 brought forward.* 



Now it must be observed that, with respect to some of the Noma- 

 dic peoples, it is certainly a matter of probable conjecture, if not 

 more, that their present condition is one of advance, or, at the least, 

 one to which they have advanced, from a condition of barbarism. 

 Several of the off-shoots or subfamilies of the great Nomadic nations 

 are known to have been, strictly speaking, barbarous when first named 

 by history, and to have passed on since from that condition to one of 

 comparative civilization, in a few cases to really a high degree of 

 culture. Others are known as yet remaining almost barbarous, per- 

 haps we might say, rather, savage. And possibly it might be a not 

 unfair inference, that, generally speaking, the possession and tendance 



* I do not here, as I have usually done, append quotations as the authority for 

 the statements in the text, or as the ground on which our arguments or inferences are 

 founded, because the doing so in a satisfactory or sufficient way would require the 

 extract of lengthened passages, which would demand increased space for a paper that 

 already, I fear, bids foir to be too long. But I think the conclusions stated in the 

 text are fully warranted by numerous statements and narratives met with in all pans 

 of the book in question, as well as in others. 



