6084 



Reason and Instinct. 



It appears originally to be as much by Instinct that man is 

 induced to the pursuit of game, — including under that term every 

 creature, from the majestic elephant down to the merest insect, 

 the capture of which is profitable to man, and especially for the pur- 

 poses of food, — as it is that the lion and the tiger, the crocodile and 

 the shark, the eagle and the hawk, that all animals of prey, without 

 exception, are impelled to the attack and capture of their several 

 quarries. The savage seems to pursue the wild creatures that 

 are the main elements of his subsistence as naturally, or — what 

 is here synonymous — as instinctively as they seek to elude or escape 

 his pursuit. And, moreover, it is one of the last instinctive impulses 

 or longings which seems to die out under the effects of long-con- 

 tinued civilization and its concomitants. English Mr. Briggs is just 

 as keen, after thirty or forty years of yard-measures and counter- 

 skipping, for his salmon-fishing, and deer stalking, and grouse- 

 shooting, as French M. Bourgeois, when expatiating at a distance 

 from his accustomed boulevards^ for his gibier of sparrows, tomtits, 

 and such small deer." 



Moreover, the intuitive perception, the marvellous keenness and 

 precision, the unfaltering sleight and skill available to the savage or 

 nearly savage man for the capture of food-animals or the discovery of 

 food-vegetables are worthy of attentive consideration. The iVustraliau 

 native, the Bushman, the native of Interior Africa wall fare sump- 

 tuously for days or weeks where the European would perish help- 

 lessly of starvation ; roots, insects, grubs, — affording no appreciable 

 token of their whereabouts except to the native eye, — serving to sup- 

 ply them with materials for even luxurious enjoyment rather than 

 simply for bare sustenance. The pit-falls too, and hidden traps 

 adopted by the savage for the capture of his game, are but parallels to 

 the pit of the ant-lion and the web of the spider; while the un- 

 faltering wariness and silent footfall which characterise his every 

 movement, even when not engaged in the chase, are but a repetition 

 of the stealthy pace and noiseless motion of the beast of prey when 

 intent upon surprising its intended victim. 



Again, what we understand by a coward is a much greater rarity 

 among a savage or uncivilized race than in the dw^ellings of culti- 

 vated life : and yet the shifts and expedients and devices adopted by 

 savages, alike individually and collectively, for the purpose of eluding 

 or avoiding danger, on this side from human foes, on the other from 

 wild beasts, are as various as they are remarkable. Some build their 

 habitation — each habitation almost a village — on a foundation of tall 



