6530 



Reason and Instinct. 



them, combined with the nature of their nervous system, which seems 

 to be constructed with entire independence of anything approaching 

 the nature of a brain or even a substitute for one. More refined 

 physiological discoveries may perhaps lessen or remove this difficulty, 

 especially if it ever should be satisfactorily established — as some have 

 suggested — that " a process of nervous matter, not in the form of a 

 ganglion, may possess the elementary functions of nerve and brain 

 combined in one" (Couch, 4 111. Inst.'' 11). In the mean time 

 Dr. Carpenter disposes of the difficulty in the following manner, 

 though there are several points in his statements as to which 1 find 

 myself unable to agree with him : — " The whole nervous system of 

 Invertebrated Animals may be regarded as ministering entirely to 

 automatic actions ; and its highest development, as in the class of 

 Insects, is connected with the highest manifestations of the instinctive 

 powers, which, when carefully examined, are found to consist entirely 

 in movements of the Excito-motor and Sensori-motor kinds. When 

 we attentively consider the habits of these animals, we find that their 

 actions, though evidently adapted to the attainment of certain ends, 

 are very far from evincing a designed adaptation on the part of the 

 beings which perform them, such as that of which we are ourselves 

 conscious in our own voluntary movements, or which we trace in the 

 operations of the more intelligent Vertebrata. 



" The adaptiveness of the instinctive operations of insects lies in 

 the original construction of their nervous system, which causes 

 particular movements to be executed in direct respondence to certain 

 impressions and sensations. 



" The type, then, of psychical perfection among invertebrated 

 animals, which is manifested in the highest degree among the social 

 insects, consists in exclusive development of the automatic powers, in 

 virtue of which each individual performs those actions to which it is 

 directly prompted by the impetus arising out of impressions made 

 upon its afferent nerves, without any self-control or self-direction. So 

 that it must be regarded as entirely a creature of necessity performing 

 its specific part in the economy of nature from no design or will of its 

 own, but in accordance with the plan originally devised by the 

 Creator." 



Our author at this point subjoins the following note : — " We have 

 not perhaps any right to affirm that there is nothing whatever analo- 

 gous in Invertcbrata to the Reasoning powers and Will of higher 

 animals ; but if these faculties have any existene among them, they 

 must be regarded as in a ludimentary state, corresponding with the 



