ON INSTINCT. 



Under these circumstances I shall beg your candid attention to a new 

 view of the subject, and a viev/ that may tend to give us a more definite 

 idea of the nature of the action, and consequently of the extent and real 

 meaning of the term. 



In an early lecture of the preceding series* I have endeavoured to point 

 out the common or essential, and many of the pecuhar properties of in- 

 organic matter ; and in a subsequent study! T attempted to lay down the 

 more prominent characters by which inorganic is distinguished from or- 

 ganic matter, as a stone, for example, from a plant or an animal. I ob- 

 served that, on investigating the history of the stone, it would be found to 

 have been produced fortuitously; to have grown by external accretion, 

 and only to be destructible by chemical or mechanical means : while, on 

 investigating the history of the plant or the animal, it would be found to have 

 been produced by generation ; to have grown by nutrition, or internal in- 

 stead of external accretion ; and to be destructible by death ; to be actuated 

 by an internal power, and possessed of parts mutually dependent, and con- 

 tributing to each other's functions. I observed farther, that in what this 

 internal power consists we know not : that in plants and animals it appears 

 to be somewhat differently modified, but that wherever we meet with it we 

 term it the principlis of life, and characterize the individual substance 

 it actuates by the name of an organized being, from its possession of or- 

 ganized parts, in contradistinction to all those substances which are desti- 

 tute as well of life as of internal organs, and which are hence denominated 

 unorganized. 



Upon another occasion I took a brief survey of the chief theories which 

 have been offered upon the nature of this mysterious and fugitive essence :| 

 which I observed was altogether a distinct principle from that of thought, 

 and from that of sensation, for both these must also be kept distinguished 

 from each other. I have remarked, that in modern times it had at one pe- 

 riod been said to be derived from caloric, thermogene, or the elementary 

 matter of heat, as it exists in the organized system from the well ascertain- 

 ed importance of thissubstance (if it be a substance) towards the perfection, 

 and even the continuance of all the vital funtions : that at another time it 

 was, for the same reason, supposed to consist of oxygene introduced into 

 the system by every act of inspiration ; and still more lately of the Voltaic 

 aura, in consequence of those wonderful effects which this aura is now 

 well known to produce on the muscular fibres of animals, not only during 

 life, but often for some hours after death has taken place. I remarked 



Dr. Hancock has trodden over an extensive ground of both physical and metaphysical re- 

 search, and the excellent spirit with which he writes, entitles him to the esteem of every 

 good man. Yet I am at a loss to determine why the principle of reason, or the reasoning 

 soul in man, should not have as fair a claim to originate from the divine energy that pervades 

 every part of nature, from the minutest atom to the highest spiritual afflation, as the faculty 

 Qf instinct. By throwing, however, the principle of human reason out of the general pale, 

 and by associating instinct with the high alliances just adverted to, the " unconscious intelli- 

 gence," as Dr. Hancock has denominated it, of the lowest part of the animal creation, even 

 that of insects and worms, is raised to a loftier and diviner rank than the peculiar principle by 

 which man has hitherto been supposed to exercise a dominion over the rest of creation. " In 

 the lowest order of animals," says Dr. Hancock, "the divine energy seems to act with most 

 unimpeded power. It is less and less concentrated in the successive links of the living chain 

 upward to man. — The lowest animal has this divine power, not of free choice, nor con- 

 sciously : the HOLIEST of men has it also, but consciously and willingly ; and it then becomes 

 his ruling principle ; his divine counsellor ; his never-failing help ; a light to his feet, and a - 

 lantern to his path," — Essay on Instinct, and its Physical and Moral Relations, p. 170 — 513. 

 *Ser.I. I^ct. IV. tSer. LLsct.VIIL J Ser. I. Lect. X. 



