REVIEWS. 
37 
Books of natural history have defined man as an animal having reason ; 
but since no animal has reason, this definition contradicts itself. The 
animal is animal, because it is incapable of understanding and reason; 
man is man, as he is not an animal. The human intelligence is no animal 
instinct exalted, the animal is negatived in the man. Instinct has been 
termed the feeling of connection with the world without. This definition 
is too general; for instinct is directed to a determined object. Man, too, 
feels himself in connection with the world, but has not instinct. Liberty 
and intelligence exclude instinct, as this is the direction to a determined 
object. Man must only if he will; the animal must because it is not free. 
Have we not stumbled here on some propositions that are identical, 
and so conclude to nothing. It seems, too, as if the author had derived 
his illustrations too much from books, to the neglect of personal observa¬ 
tion. The plan of the work was conceived, as he tells us, under the free 
blue sky ; yet we miss somewhat of the freshness of such an origin. 
Reimarus, whom he quotes, is not altogether wrong, when he prizes 
the knowledge of the instincts of animals possessed by shepherds and hunts¬ 
men, fishers and fowlers, higher than the lore of Academicians. At the same 
time we could fancy Hinrich himself a follower of the chase, from the zeal 
with which he has vindicated it as a truly human pleasure, and in no wise 
assimilating man to the beasts of prey. “ Hunting is no cruelty to animals, 
though hunting on another’s grounds is cruelty to man.” Some pages are 
devoted to the philosophy of the chase, and fox-hunting in England is 
brought in for an illustration. If such a theme be unexpected in a book of 
philosophy, yet it is hardly more so than the bugle-note of war with which 
Oken ends his Natural Philosophy. But Oken’s philosophy has no promi¬ 
nent place in Hinrich’s sketch, being noticed only to be refuted; and as for 
Esenbeck, his “ schematism” and his triads have not procured him so much 
as a mention. Notwithstanding these omissions, if they should be regarded 
as such, the book affords a varied and lively summary of the efforts of noted 
thinkers—those of Germany in particular—to grapple and bind in terms the 
subtle idea of that mysterious principle, which all are conscious of, and many 
curious about—amusing, too, for the glimpses interspersed of the exuberant 
fancies in which the acutest intellects are prone to disport, under the guise 
of rigid induction, when the positive out of themselves is excluded, and 
subjectivity has its unrestrained play. That Hinrich has succeeded where 
so many have failed, we do not imply, but the earnest investigation of such 
a problem seems not to be without its use as a discipline of certain facul¬ 
ties, if it were but that we may learn their limits, and apprehend by 
consequence their right use and direction.—A. H. H. 
F 
