ized needles as to their position. Mere affection attaches the human mother to her child, or the bird to her own offspring, rather than to the young of other animals; and, the attachment existing, reflection or Instinct teaches it how to feed and protect them. In like manner, sympathetic or unconscious imitation, which has been classed with the propensities, is also common to man and the brute, and is equally irrational or independent of thought in both. Thus, to borrow an example from Adam Smith, when a rope-dancer is performing a perilous feat, the spectators writhe and twist their bodies, accommodating their motions to what they suppose to be necessary for the acrobat's safety. And the amount of this sympathetic action is proportioned to the absence of thought, or to the degree in which they give themselves up to the impulse of the moment. If they are cool enough to reflect on the nature of the case and the proprieties of the occasion, they sit still. So the monkey, the parrot, and the mocking-bird spontaneously and blindly repeat movements and sounds, the purpose and meaning of which they are certainly ignorant of. The parrot can easily be taught to articulate, but not to talk,- that is, to utter words at the right moment through a perception of their meaning. Man can imitate rationally, or with a distinct cognition at the moment of the purpose to be obtained by the repeated act; but the monkey cannot.

If those mental endowments which have now been shown to be possessed in common by the human, and at least a part of the brute creation, be examined, in order to discover, if possible, some criterion or general characteristic whereby they are distinguished both from Instinct and Intellect, it will appear that the former, so far as they are exercised by the lower animals, relate only to particular cases and individual objects, while Intellect necessarily involves some power of generalization, and of drawing inferences from general principles. To adopt a distinction familiar to psychologists, the former are concerned only with Intuitions, while the latter requires the exercise of Thought. Animals can judge only of the object that is actually before them. This or that one thing they can perceive, remember, like or dislike, associate with some other one thing, and judge whether it will satisfy a present want. But they cannot form classes of things; they cannot generalize their experience, and thus form premises from which general conclusions can be drawn. This would be to exercise Reason properly so called; and Reason is a function of Thought. Consequently, animals cannot consciously combine means for the attainment of a

future object, and therefore their modes of operation are never altered or improved. They cannot even anticipate the future, or foresee future wants; for this can be done only through a generalization of past experience.

This theory explains at once the most striking deficiency of the lower animals, their incapacity of using language. As they have only Intuitions, the only words which they can apply or understand are Proper Names, - the appellations of this or that particular thing. These they can understand. A dog can easily be taught to recognize the name of his master, even when pronounced by another person. They can even be taught to recognize the names of particular places and buildings, so that they will understand and obey when they are told to go to the barn, the river, the field, or the house.* But it is always the particular barn, or other object, with which they have been taught to associate this sound or significant gesture as its Proper Name. Carry the animal to a distant place, near which may be a set of corresponding objects, and then tell him to go to the barn or the river, and he will not understand the order as applying to the new set of objects, but will set off immediately for the old building or place with whose Proper Name alone he is familiar. In like manner, they can be taught by a particular word, or gesture, to repeat a certain movement, or perform a particular act, as when ordered to bark, to lie down, to watch, or to go out; by frequent repetition, the sound of this particular word has become to them the Proper Name of this particular act, the union of the two being a simple association, like that which connects a rod with the idea of a whipping. But of course, with Proper Names only, we could not frame a sentence or express any connected meaning. Words, properly so called, are general names, expressive of Thoughts, or whole classes of things; and brutes have no Thoughts to express, this being the peculiar attribute of Reason.

Now, as Intuitions alone will not enable animals either to foresce future emergencies, or to combine means so as to provide for them, there must be some provision to remedy this deficiency, or the different

* In Mr. Lockhart's amusing account of Sir Walter Scott's first favorite dog, Camp, he says: "As the servant was laying the cloth for dinner, he would address the dog lying on his mat by the fire, and say, 'Camp, my good fellow, the Sheriff's coming home by the ford, or by the hill,' and the sick animal would immediately bestir himself to welcome his master, going out at the back door or the front door, according to the direction given, and advancing as far as he was able.”

races would speedily became extinct. Habitations must be constructed; food must be procured by complex contrivances of nets and stratagems; supplies must be stored up against an approaching winter; elaborate provision must be made for the birth and nurture of offspring. Man is endowed with Intellect, which fully answers all these exigencies. The uniformity of nature's laws makes the observation of the past a mirror which images the future; and the same generalization of experience through the power of Thought enables him to combine the necessary means of satisfying the wants thus foreseen. The gift of language, which, as has been shown, is a consequence of the endowment of Thought, multiplies indefinitely the instructive power of individual experience, by making it virtually coextensive with the multiplied and various experience of the whole race. Instruction is the communication of other people's experience and the results of their ingenuity, and Intellect is entirely dependent upon instruction and personal observation. Without their aid, or without the uniformity of nature's laws, which lends them all their efficiency, it would be powerless as a means of providing for the future.

Instinct is an impulse, conceived without instruction and prior to all experience, to perform certain acts, which, in themselves considered, are not immediately agreeable to the agent, but are generally laborious and even painful, and which are useful only as means for some future end, this end being commonly one of pre-eminent importance or necessity, either for the preservation of the animal's own life or the continuance of its species. Instinct appears in the accomplishment of a complex act, (the building of a nest, net, or cell, or the capture of prey by a stratagem,) which man certainly could not perform without Thought, or Intellect properly so called; that is, without experience or instruction, the observation of effects, the induction of a rule or law from them, and the consequent choice and adaptation of means to ends. It has been said that man is not more intelligent, but otherwise intelligent, than the lower animals. This is hardly correct, for animals, properly speaking, are not intelligent at all. As has been shown, they are incapable of Thought. Instinct appears in them as a substitute for Intellect, not as a lower degree of it. Both the human and the brute creation have Intuitions; but these Intuitions being wholly insufficient to answer all the exigencies of either, they are supplemented, in the one case, by Thought acting through experience, and in the other, by Instinct, which is altogether independent of experience. Within its

narrow sphere, Instinct is certainly superior to Intellect; for it is infallible, and the perfection of its work man cannot imitate. Man does his work ill, better, well; the animal always does his perfectly. But Instinct is blind, unchangeable, and narrow, or limited to a very few ends; so that the same animal, while working within its appointed sphere, often appears as a miracle of wisdom; but when forced to attempt anything outside of that sphere, it reappears in its true character as a mere brute. Intellect, on the other hand, is fallible, conscious of itself, discursive or even infinitely varied in its applications, and perfectible by small degrees. The unchangeableness of Instinct appears in this fact, that the nest of the bird, the cell of the bee, and the web of the spider are reproduced after the same form as rigorously as the flower and fruit of a plant.

If the view now taken is correct, the answer to our third question is obvious. It is impossible that Instinct and Intellect should ever be conjoined, or found to exist together in the same being, whether in the brute or in man. We cannot even imagine Reason acting without self-consciousness, or looking into the future without the guidance of experience or instruction, or making accurate and sufficient provision for future wants without foresight of those wants, and without conscious adaptation of its means to its ends. It is needless to bring together instances of curious, complex, and far-reaching instincts, such as those of the bee, the spider, and the migratory bird, wherewith to excite man's wonder. Every instance of Instinct, even the simplest, is marvellous to him, for it is incomprehensible. Man must learn to perform even the simplest acts by slow degrees, after many efforts, many mistakes and failures, and generally with much guidance. He must learn to walk. He must learn to select his food. He must even learn to see, for nothing is more certain than his inability, by the first use of his eyes, to determine either the distance, position, or magnitude of any object whatever. On the other hand, the newly dropped lamb or colt walks with ease, avoids any obstacles that may be in its way, and goes directly to the dugs of its dam, whence alone it can obtain its proper food. Whose hand guides it at once to this source of nourishment, when imitation would certainly lead it to crop the herbage, like its parents?

Another fact is worthy of notice as establishing a fundamental difference between these two faculties. Insects, and the Articulata generally, which have no brain properly so called, show more complex and

surprising instincts than the Vertebrata; whence we infer that Instinct is independent of a brain, while Intellect certainly exists in very close relation with that organ.

The only actions of man which seem to have any claim to be considered as instinctive, are those prompted by the feeling of modesty or shame. This feeling itself is not an instinct, any more than the emotions of pride, emulation, or anger. But the actions to which it points are not merely natural manifestations of strong emotion, but are peculiar and definite, as if devised by reason for the attainment of a specific purpose. All the lower animals gratify each of their appetites, as nature prompts, without stint, and without any apparent desire of cover or concealment. Man alone gratifies one of them only with every precaution of secrecy, and carefully provides a covering, not needed for the purposes of protection or warmth, for certain portions of the body. No tribe of savages has ever been discovered so rude and debased as to manifest complete indifference respecting such precautions and coverings. The adult females are always provided with some clothing, however slight, the arrangement of which indicates the purpose for which it is worn; and if, in a very few instances, adult males are found unprovided with similar coverings, there is reason to believe that extreme poverty rather than indifference is the cause of the neglect. The fact, that children under the age of puberty are often suffered to go entirely nude, also indicates the purpose of the covering. However slight the garment may be, a mere girdle with the natives of the South Pacific islands, or a narrow cloth around the loins, as with the savages of Central Africa, travellers relate that it is guarded with much care and jealousy, and that the removal of it seems to cause as much pain and shame as would result from entire exposure among more civilized races. Reason and experience could not have indicated to savages the necessity or propriety of this slight covering; as no reason can be assigned for it, apart from the sacred instinct by which it is peremptorily enjoined. If this be an instinct, it is one which, unlike all other instincts, does not conduce to the preservation, that is, to the physical safety, either of the individual or of the race. Man might live in this respect as the brutes do, and live as long and as well. Call it instinct, propensity, or what we may, the only conceivable purpose for which it was implanted in man is a moral purpose, as a safeguard for the right development of his ethical nature. Hence it is, that the entire loss of it, which sometimes results from extreme profligacy, is shown by experience to be equivalent to