214 



ON INSTINCT. 



mediate nature between matter and mind ; or else are in some instances 

 simply material, and in others simply mental. 



The very excellent and learned Cudworth belong^ed to the first of these 

 two divisions, and may be regarded as having- taken the lead in the scheme 

 which it developes. I have already observed, in a former study, that this 

 profound metaphysician was so strongly attached to the Platonic theory of 

 the creation of the world, that he strove, with the full force of his mighty 

 mind, to restore this theory to general vogue. And as it was one important 

 principle in this theory that incorporeal form, or an active and plastic nature, 

 exists throughout the world independently of pure mind and pure matter, and 

 that the last is solely rendered visible and endowed with manifest properties 

 by a union with this active intermede, Cudworth conceived that all instinct- 

 ive powers might be satisfactorily resolved into the operation of the same 

 secondary energy in proportion as it pervades the universe.* In opposition 

 to which doctrine, however, it is sufficient to remark, that as the existence of 

 all visible matter, whether organized or unorganized, upon the leading prin- 

 ciple of the Platonic theory, is equally the result of this plastic power, and 

 produced by a union with it, it should follow that unorganized matter ought 

 occasionally at least to give proofs of an instinctive faculty, as well as matter 

 in an organized state ; proofs of definite means to accomplish a definite end, 

 and that end the general weal, preservation, or reproduction of the body ex- 

 hibiting it. But as, by the common consent of all mankind, no such faculty- 

 is ever to be traced in unorganized matter, it cannot be referred to a princi- 

 ple which is equally common and essential to all visible matter, whether 

 under an organized or an unorganized modification. 



At the head of the second division of the last class of philosophers to whom 

 I have referred, we may perhaps place M. Buffon ; who, incapable of acced- 

 ing altogether to the mechanical hypothesis of Des Cartes, yet not choos- 

 ing to allot to animals below the rank of man the possession of an intelligent 

 principle, kindly endowed them with the property of life, which Des Cartes 

 had morosely withheld by contending that they were mechanical macliines 

 alone, and very obligingly allowed them to possess a faculty of distinguish- 

 ing between pleasure and pain, together with a general desire for the former 

 and a general aversion for the latter. And having thus equipped the different 

 tribes of brutes, he conceived that he had sufficiently accounted for the ex- 

 istence of instinctive actions, by leaving them to the operation of this distin- 

 guishing faculty upon the mechanical properties of their respective organs. 

 M. Reimar, however, an ingenious German professor, who flourished towards 

 the close of the last century, did not conceive in the same manner: and 

 hence, in a work immediately directed to the instinct of animals, and pub- 

 lished at Hamburgh in 1769, he divides the actions which he apprehends ought 

 to pass under this name into three classes — mechanical, representative, and 

 spontaneous : by the first intending all the proper actions of animal organs 

 over which the will has no control, as the pulsation of the heart, the secretion 

 of the various fluids, and the dilatation of the pupil ; by the second, those 

 which depend upon an imperfect kind of memory, and which, so far as it is 

 memory, brutes enjoy in common with mankind ; and by the third, those 

 which originate from M. Buffon's admitted faculty of distinguishing pleasure 

 from pain, and the desire consequent upon it of possessing the one and avoid- 

 ing the other. 



It is, however, a sufficient answer to both these opinions, which in truth 

 are founded upon one common basis, that, like the theories of Darwin and 

 Smellie, they equally confound, though in a different manner, powers that 

 are essentially distinct. The founders of these opinions may, with Darwin 

 and Smellie, derive the instinctive faculty from a principle of mind, or with 

 Des Cartes and Dr. Reid from a principle of body ; but they have no right to 

 derive it from both, or to contend that its different ramifications originate in 

 some instances from the one source, and in others from the other : though, as 



Intellect. Syst. 1743 



