ON INSTINCT. 



229 



down, and point out their irrelevancy : and then propose a new theory, 

 and explain the grounds upon which it is founded. 



I. It was the opinion of Des Cartes that brutes are mere mechanical 

 machines : that they have neither ideas nor sensation : neither pain nor 

 pleasure j and that their outcries under punishment, and their alacrity in 

 pursuing an enemy or devouring a meal are produced by the very same 

 sort of force, which, exerted u^on the different keys of an organ compels 

 its respective pipes to give forth different sounds. And a great part of the 

 cardinal Pohgnac's very elegant Latin poem, entitled Anti-Lucretius, is 

 written in direct support of this most whimsical hypothesis. I shall, per- 

 haps, have occasion to examine it somewhat more at large in a subsequent 

 study : for the present it may be sufficient to observe that, in spite of all 

 the philosophy in the world, the coachman to this hour has whipped, and 

 will yet continue to whip his horses, the huntsman to halloo his hounds, 

 and the bird-trainer to sing or whistle to his bull-finches : though if the 

 whole were mere mechanical machines, they might as well whip the sands, 

 halloo to the waves, and whistle to the winds. 



Under this view of the subject all instinctive actions were of course re- 

 ferred to a principle of body, or gross tangible matter, not endowed with 

 peculiar or exclusive properties ; and wherever any thing of the same de- 

 scription was to be found among mankind, it was instantly separated from 

 all connexion with intelligence, and referred to the same source. 



The incongruities accompanying this hypothesis have not, however, 

 prevented other philosophers from following it to a certain latitude in 

 modern times, although it has been seldom, perhaps never of late days, 

 pursued to the extent contended for by Des Cartes. The ideas of Dr. 

 Reid, who has expressly written upon this subject, do not appear to be 

 very perspicuous : yet he obviously espouses the doctrine of a mechanical 

 principle of animal actions ; and the actions which are resolvable into this 

 principle are, in his opinion, of two kinds, those of instinct, and those of 

 habit. Instinct is with him, therefore, as well as with Des Cartes, a pro- 

 perty of body or gross matter alone, unendowed with any peculiar powers, 

 and merely operated upon by a combination, of mechanical forces. 



II. In direct opposition to this corporeal hypothesis, Mr. Smellie and 

 Dr. Darwin have contended that instinct is altogether a mental principle, 

 the brute tribes possessing an intelligent faculty of the very same nature as 

 mankind, though more Hmited in its range. From this point, however, 

 these two physiologists disagree, and fly off in opposite directions : the 

 former contending that reason is the result of instinct,* and the latter that 

 instinct is the result of reason. In the promptitude and perfection with 

 which the new-born infant seeks out and sucks its mother's breast. Dr. 

 Darwin asserts that, although the chain of thought which directs it to the 



* Mr. Smellie defines instinct to be " every original quality of miHd which produces feel- 

 ings or actions, when the proper objects are presented to it — Philos. of Nat. Hist. rol. i . 

 p. 155. So, p. 159, " From the abore facts and reasonings, it seems to be apparent that in- 

 stincts are original qualities of mind ; that erery animal is possessed of some of these qualities ; 

 that the intelligence and resources of animals are proportioned to the number of instincts with 

 which their minds are endowed ; that all animals are, in some measure, rational beings ; and 

 that the dignity and superiority of the human intellect are necessary results, not of the con- 

 formation of our bodies, but of the great variety of instincts which nature has been pleased 

 to confer on the species." 



In p. 156, he in like manner confounds mind with sensation, as he faai above confounded 

 instinct with mind. " Sensation,'* says he, " implies a sentient principle or mind. What- 

 ever feels, therefore, is mind. Of course, the lowest species of animals are endowed witk 

 mind." It ou^ht to have been first proved that the lowest species of animals are even endow • 

 ed with sMisation. 



