6196 



Reason and Instinct. 



along the line of the proposed Inter-Oceanic Railway, and read a list of the species 

 procured, thirty-nine in number, accompanied by remarks on their synonymy and 

 distribution. 



Mr. S. P. Woodward read a paper on the genus Synapta, by himself and Mr. L. 

 Barrett. Two species of Synapta (marine animals remarkable for the microscopic 

 anchors in the skin) are found on the British coast. 1. S. digitata, 3Iont., ranging 

 from Scotland to the Mediterranean, occurs in Ruthsay Bay, west coast of Ireland, 

 Devonshire, Cornwall, also in Vigo Bay (Galicia), and Trieste (Adriatic). 2. S. in- 

 hserens. Mull., which ranges from Norway to Brittany, has been found at Aberyst- 

 with, Criccieth, Falmouth, and BanlryBay. A new species, called Synapta bidentata, 

 was descrii)ed as having bifid anchor-flukes, and oval plates perforated by many cir- 

 cular holes, decreasing in size from the centre to the circumference. The specimens 

 were collected in China, by the Rev. G. Vachell, and are three inches long, with 

 twelve tentacles, each having four lobed digits. — D. W. M. 



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



The second position which we ai'e, if possible, to establish, is — 

 That, at least presinnably, as man emerges from the uncivilized or 

 savage state, Instinct, by degrees, ceases to have any predominant 

 power, and, infancy past, in no case utterly excludes the operation of 

 Reason. 



It must be observed at the outset that we shall meet with an inhe- 

 rent, it may be an almost insuperable, difficulty in the way of suc- 

 cessfully maintaining this position otherwise than by presumption. 

 1 mean that, from circumstances I proceed to notice, observed cases 

 or facts must, it is likely, always be too few and too special to afford 

 groiuids for a thoroughly safe induction in such an inquiry as the 

 present. It is, I suppose, almost an axiom that self- originating 

 civilization never had or can have existence ; that if any nation or 

 people have ever passed through any of the stages or processes 

 implied in the term civilization, the fact of their having done so is a 

 sufficient proof that some civilizing agent, independent of and exter- 

 nal to themselves, has been at work among them, whether for a longer 

 or shorter period, w^hether with more or less continued and energetic 

 action. That agent may have been exclusively human, or partly 

 human and partly superhuman ; but in neither case have they left 

 any distinct record of either the progressive or the completed effect 

 of their agency, which is at all sufficiently available to us for ceciding 

 the amount of corresponding psychical change of the kind in which 

 we arc interested. 



