212 



ON INSTINCT. 



nical machines, they might as well whip the sands, halloo to the waves, and 

 whistle to the winds. 



Under this view of the subject all instinctive actions were of course re- 

 ferred to a principle of body, or gross tangible matter, not endowed with 

 peculiar or exclusive properties ; and wherever any thing of the same de- 

 scription was to be found among mankind, it was instantly separated from 

 all connexion with intelligence, and referred to the same source. 



The incongruities accompanying this hypothesis have not, however, pre- 

 vented other philosophers from following it to a certain latitude in modern 

 times, although it has been seldom, perhaps never of late days, pursued to the 

 extent contended for by Des Cartes. The ideas of Dr. Reid, who has ex- 

 pressly written upon this subject, do not appear to be very perspicuous : yet 

 he obviously espouses the doctrine of a mechanical principle of animal 

 actions ; and the actions which are resolvable into this principle are, in his 

 opinion, of two kinds — those of instinct, and those of habit. Instinct is with 

 him, therefore, as well as with Des Cartes, a property of body or gross matter 

 alone, unendowed with- any peculiar powers, and merely operated upon by a 

 combination of mechanical forces. 



II. In direct opposition to this corporeal hypothesis, Mr. Smellie and Dr. 

 Darwin have contended that instinct is altogether a mental principle, the 

 brute tribes possessing an intelligent faculty of the very same nature as man- 

 kind, though more limited in its range. From this point, however, these two 

 physiologists disagree, and fly off in opposite directions : the former contend- 

 ing that reason is the result of instinct,* and the latter that instinct is the 

 result of reason. In the promptitude and perfection with which the new- 

 born infant seeks out and sucks its mother's breast, Dr. Darwin asserts that, 

 although the chain of thought which directs it to the accomplishment of its 

 object is concealed from the view, it still exists ; and he endeavours to follow 

 it up and develope it;f in which, however, it is not worth while to accompany 

 him, for the whole process, even upon his own showing, is so complex, that it 

 would rather require the genius of an adult Newton to unfold it, than yield to 

 the dawning powers of a new-born infant. 



I will just observe, that in various cases of the instinctive faculty the most 

 excursive theorist cannot picture to his imagination any thing like a chain of 

 thought, or previous reasoning ; any thing like habit or imJtation, by which the 

 means and the end are joined together. Let us take, as an example, the very 

 common instance of a brood of young ducks brought up under a hen, and 

 contrary to all the instincts and feelings of the foster-mother, plunging sud- 

 denly into the water, while she herself trembles piteously on the brink of the 

 pond, not daring to pursue them, and expecting every moment to see them 

 drowned. By what kind of experience or observation, by what train of 

 thought or reasoning has the scarcely fledged brood been able to discern that 

 a web-foot fits them for swimming, and that a fissured foot would render them 

 incapable 1 — a knowledge that mankind have only acquired by long and re- 

 peated contemplation, and which has never been fully explained to this hour. 



* Mr. Smellie defines instinct to be " every original quality of mind which produces feelings or actions, 

 ■when the proper objects are presented to it."~Philos. of Nat. Hist. vol. i. p. 155. So, p. 159, " From the 

 above facts and reasonings, it seems to be apparent that instincts are original qualities of mind ; that every 

 animal is possessed of some of these qualities ; that the intelligence and resouices of animals are propor- 

 tioned to the number of instincts with which their minds are endowed ; that all animals are, in some 

 measure, rational beings; and that the dignity and superiority of the human intellect are necessary 

 results, not of the conformation of our bodies, but of the great variety of instincts which nature has been 

 pleased to confer on the species." 



In p. 156 he, in like manner, confounds mind with sensation, as he has above confounded instinct with 

 mind. "Sensation,'' says he, "implies a sentient principle or mind. Whatever feeis, therefore, is mind. 

 Of course, the lowest species of animals are endowed with mind." It ought to have been first proved that 

 the lowest species of animals are even endowed with sensation. 



t "By a due attention to these circumstances, many of the actions, which at first sight seemed only 

 referrible to an inexplicable instinct, will appear to have been acquired, like all other animal actions that 

 dfe attended with consciousness, by the repeated efforts of our muscles under the conduct of our sensations 

 '^Or dtesires." — Zoonom. Lect. xvi. 2, 4. " If it should be asked, what induces a bird to sit weeks en its first 

 eggs, unconscious that a brood of young ones w^ill be the product 1 the answer must be, that it is the same 

 passion that induces the human mother to hold her offspring whole nights and days in her fond arms, ar 

 press it to her bosom, unconscious ^'f Hs future growth to sense and maahood, till observation or traditli 

 have informed her ''—Darwin, sm - " 13, 4. 



