i88ij 
Comparative Psychology. 
29 
at all. Nay, as the highest kinds of exertion, including the 
discovery and establishment of scientific truth, is not re- 
munerative, we may say that hunger is here a check, not a 
stimulus. It has often been said that our progress in dis- 
covery would be far more rapid if we could train up a caste 
of thinkers who could dispense with the common necessaries 
of life. But we are bound to admit that the highest brutes 
and even the human savage show scant marks of such disin- 
terested and spontaneous activity. The “ black-fellow ” of 
Australia, like the cat or the dog when not under the in- 
fluence of hunger, of fear, or of the reproductive appetite, 
sleeps or sits idle and objectless. Hence it must be said 
that if man was placed upon the earth as an intelligent being, 
Dr. Schneider’s fundamental view is false ; if, however, our 
species has gradually been evolved from a lower form of 
animal life, or even from a state of savagery it is true. At 
the same time we add “ pity ’t is ’t is true.” 
As the next step the author divides all animal impulses or 
“ instinCts” into four classes: impulses of sensation, per- 
ception, conception, and of thought. In the lowest beings 
the instincts of sensation, excited by touch — by aCtual con- 
tact with some external objeCt — are alone to be traced. In 
higher forms of life “ perceptive ” feelings are superadded, 
by which the author understands such as are produced by 
distinguishing objects at a distance. Hence they cannot 
appear until the organs of smell, hearing, and sight have 
begun to be differentiated. Zoophytes, worms, the lower 
mollusca, advance to or shrink from an objeCt, only accord- 
ing as, on touching it, they experience an agreeable sensa- 
tion or otherwise. In inseCts, fishes, birds, and mammalia, 
the perceptive feelings come into play. Objects desirable 
for food, individuals of the opposite sex, and, on the other 
hand, enemies, are recognised at a distance, and the animal 
in question, without any reflection or idea of an ultimate 
purpose, aCts accordingly. It will be asked why outward 
objects whether immediately felt, or distinguished afar off, 
should make a pleasant or unpleasant impression upon any 
animal ? The answer must be sought in the faCts of heredity. 
We— for the perceptive feelings extend up to man — and our 
semi-human forefathers* have gradually accustomed our- 
selves to feed upon certain objects, and to avoid others in 
consequence of their offensive taste or hurtful effects. In 
consequence the child, as soon as its senses are sufficiently 
developed, but not before, seizes and eats bodies of the one 
* Always supposing that man has been evolved from some lower animal. 
