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of any light which we can bring to bear upon it, we see, first 
of all, certain sensations , then certain thoughts , and last, 
certain volitions. We see all these states as surely as in any 
mind among men. Why should we call their combination 
“ instincts” ? The senses in at least some animals are keener 
than in men ; the thoughts are much more rapid, as a rule ; 
the volitions are more vigorous; but that gives no ground for 
calling their combinations by a name implying their blindness 
or unaccountableness. Similar questions rise as to “love” 
and “sympathy” when called “instincts.” Why, for example, 
should the gregarious actions of either animals or of men be 
called “instincts”? The sentinel of a flock has certain 
sensations ; he sees an enemy approaching ; he has instantly 
thoughts of danger ; he clearly thinks of the enemy's designs ; 
he gives the well-known signal to the flock ; — why call all this 
“instinct”? Then the love of animals is as real as that of 
man, and so is their sympathy; and both are as really the 
results of thought. Both are the results of processes perfectly 
well known to us through our own experience. Lay the states 
of the animal soul out in all their variety, and value. them at 
their utmost; then search, not in something to which you 
are blind, and which you call by an unmeaning name ; but in 
the sensations, thoughts, and volitions of animal life, so as to 
see if you can find anything that can be identified either with 
the true moral idea, or with the true moral sense. If you find 
it, then tell us that you have; if you do not find it, then 
cease to fancy it under the meaningless term of “ instinct.” 
This alone is worthy of science. ' Conjecturings are offensive 
when put in the place of good, honest facts, in the search for 
what is, not what may be imagined. 
But in following this matter we come to the “ought” of 
Mr. Darwin's pointer dog. What does that mean ? As repre- 
sented, it comes to nothing more than the difference between 
two “ instincts " ! Perhaps he means two feelings — that of 
desire to chase, and that of the desire to point. That to point, 
it seems, is permanently the strongest, and the creature's 
“ ought” means nothing more than a perception of the differ- 
ence. “ Ought,” then, really means nothing more than that 
it is more comfortable in the long run to act in one way than 
in another ! This is something all but infinitely different from 
the meaning of that “ duty ” which contemplates the loss of 
being itself as preferable to the doing of wrong. We turn 
with sorrow from the sad proof which Darwin furnishes of his 
having lost the true thought in this momentous matter. 
Giving up altogether, then, the notion of “ instinct,” we 
come to that of “ intuitive ” ideas, as giving explanation of 
