Reason and Instinct. 



6081 



On Reason and Instinct. By the Rev. J. C. Atkinson, M.A. 



(Continued fryj,i page 6054). 



With regard to the presence and operation of Instinct in man the 

 positions which, it appears to tne, are most consistent with obser- 

 vation and sound reasoning, may be designated thus : — 



I. That man in an uncivilized state* is the most influenced by the 

 impulses of Instinct ; so that in some of his actions, whether more or 

 fewer, that essence or attribute may even predominate over Reason, 

 as a practical rule of action ; in an almost isolated action or two, may 

 even operate to the exclusion of Reason. 



II. That, presumably, as he emerges from the uncivilized state, 

 Instinct, by degrees, ceases to have any predominant power, and, 

 infancy past, in no case utterly excludes the operation of Reason. 



III. That in a fully civilized state Instinct survives indeed, but is 

 so restrained and regulated in its operation by Reason, that it 

 becomes difficult to allege any but a very few of man's daily actions 

 as influenced by it; or even to distinguish between the workings of 

 Instinct and the rulings of Reason in actions, which, according to 

 analogy, are originally due to or prompted by Instinct. 



IV. That beyond all this, if by any chance man treads in a back- 

 ward order the steps he has already imprinted in his passage fiom 

 the uncivilized to the civilized state, he, at the same time, and as if 



* I purposely avoid using the words " in the state of nature,'' as indefinite and 

 indefinable. I do not take the condition of any savage tribe or community to be the 

 state of nature, because it is impossible to say what processes of change, moral, phy- 

 sical, psychical, of improvement or deterioration, such tribes may have passed through 

 and may be still in course of passing through. Probably, the only human creatures 

 in speaking of whom the expression "in the state of nature" could be correctly 

 employed, would be our first parents in their earliest experience of life : and just as 

 probably there are the materials for a fierce discussion in any attempt at realising 

 what that condition was. One theory T have met with is, that they were idealess 

 savages, and such as idealess savages anterior to experience must necessarily be: a 

 theory I should be sorry to assent to, even for argument's sake. Another, that they 

 were the noblest specimens of humanity ever seen in the world ; noblest, physically 

 and intellectually ; and that the general tendency of the species since has rather been 

 to deterioration than in the opposite direction. The truth, as ever, probably lies 

 between these two extremes of opinion, and it would be an interesting theme for dis- 

 cussion in the hands of one of sufficient attainment, moderation, and power of vision 

 at once comprehensive and discriminating. 



XVI. 2 G 



