6204 



Reason and Instinct. 



of large floclcs and herds is cle facto a presumption that their owners, 

 wanderers though they be of necessity, are on the upward march — 

 however much the final accomplishment of that march may have been 

 or may yet be delayed by repeated and lengthened halts — from barba- 

 rism or savage life to the more cultivated life of agriculture and the 

 useful arts. And if so, bearing in mind the above-noticed peculiari- 

 ties in respect of instinctive influence as displayed in the doings of 

 several of the Nomadic peoples, we have so far a corroboration of the 

 views embodied in the conclusion we arrived at a few pages back. 



Turning next to the illustration afforded in the case of the New 

 Zealander — and there are other and similar experiences of the same 

 land — we find our conclusion further borne out and confirmed. With 

 all the instincts of the savage in full power and operation, and with 

 almost more than the full complement of savage ferocity, antecedently 

 to the time at which the missionary began to exercise upon him the 

 humanising and elevating tendencies of Christianity, and of associa- 

 tion with some of the better specimens of European humanity; yet in 

 the course of a comparatively brief epoch he has been brought volun- 

 tarily, even eagerly, to adopt not simply many of the customs, but 

 even some of the arts of civilization, with all which that implies of 

 the stronger as well as more evident working of his intellectual 

 faculties ; while, what is perhaps even more to our purpose, he 

 manifestly retains, though he has now little use for or desire to exer- 

 cise them, his old instinctive powers and qualities, and candidly avows 

 that he could easily, if need were or inclination disposed him, return 

 to what was once his wonted exercise of them. But the question, how 

 long, after how many generations, he could thus achieve a resumption 

 of his forsaken instinctive habits, is one which it needs no elaborate 

 system of discussion to reply to. A few years would so far dull the 

 senses left unpractised in comparison with what was his wont in his 

 savage days, and deaden his sensibility to impulses long disregarded, if 

 not discontinued, — which on physical grounds, impulses such as those 

 under discussion are, most easily come to be, — that it would be no easy 

 matter to him to be again the man he once was in the endowments and 

 attributes of savage life ; while, as to what would be the condition of 

 those of the second generation, born and brought up among many of 

 the usages of civilized life, and utterly untrained in those of their 

 fathers' quondam life, there can be no question that Instinct Ccin 

 never be in them what it was in their fathers, except under circum- 

 stances which will be brought under review in the next division of 

 the paper. 



