-
Articles/Ads
Article Untitled Article ← Page 3 of 5 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
how to pursue and secure their prey ? how to seek and select , and sometimes even to harbour and store their food ? how to find a shelter from the storm , or even , frequently , to become the best of masons , and to build a model cottage or a downy nest ? how to protect , and shelter , and feed their young , or face their assailants with a
courage indomitably fierce ? how , and when , and where to emigrate to winter quarters ? how and when to return , with balmy spring , to fodder or to flowers ? or , more marvellous still , when circumstances press , to take to sea , to row a boat , to hoist a sail , to sink a shaft , to excavate a mine ? But to tell the whole tale , would occupy twenty annual volumes of our Magazine , The instincts of insects alone would fill half a dozen .
Our object at present is rather to inquire into the nature of instinct , than to rehearse its prodigies . What is instinct ? Wherein does it differ from reason ? Is it the distinctive and exclusive endowment of the lower animals , or does man partake of it also ? Is instinct given to animals instead of reason , or in addition to it ? These are the questions which we propose to investigate and expound . But the ground is tender and the path untrodden , and we
beg the reader ' s forbearance as we venture , by cautious steps , to feel our way into one of the most charming recesses of nature . True , philosophers and physiologists , metaphysicians and naturalists , have pursued the subject over hedge and ditch with a ready pen , but there is one thing to be observed which makes us shun their wandering paths , and that is , they are all divergent from each other , and never meet . There is little inductive reasoning , and no one point of universal concession . Take a few examples : —
Des Cartes referred all the actions of the lower animals to the simple laws of mechanism , considering brutes as mere automata , never acting themselves , but always acted upon by external agency or impulse ; thus placing the animal in a scale of being , even below the vegetable . This is turning the mouse into a mouse-trap .
Selvetius and Darwin came to the rescue , and , like true knights , endowed the injured with exaggerated and imaginary honours ; maintaining that most of the actions of the lower animals were the result of a proee * ss of reasoning . Smellie reversed the order , and viewed both man and brute as under the domination of a common instinct , of which he represented
the reasoning faculty as the result . JBtiffon referred all instinct to sensation impelling the animal to seek the pleasures and avoid the pains of the moment , without any ulterior design , Foley disputes the truth of this theory , and endeavours to illustrate its fallacy .
Addison , enveloped in this literary fog , gravely opined that " there is nothing more mysterious than instinct . " Mystery , however , is not the child of science , and truth generally lies artificially concealed between the extremes of error ; and here it will be found in the present instance . Both man and beast partake
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
how to pursue and secure their prey ? how to seek and select , and sometimes even to harbour and store their food ? how to find a shelter from the storm , or even , frequently , to become the best of masons , and to build a model cottage or a downy nest ? how to protect , and shelter , and feed their young , or face their assailants with a
courage indomitably fierce ? how , and when , and where to emigrate to winter quarters ? how and when to return , with balmy spring , to fodder or to flowers ? or , more marvellous still , when circumstances press , to take to sea , to row a boat , to hoist a sail , to sink a shaft , to excavate a mine ? But to tell the whole tale , would occupy twenty annual volumes of our Magazine , The instincts of insects alone would fill half a dozen .
Our object at present is rather to inquire into the nature of instinct , than to rehearse its prodigies . What is instinct ? Wherein does it differ from reason ? Is it the distinctive and exclusive endowment of the lower animals , or does man partake of it also ? Is instinct given to animals instead of reason , or in addition to it ? These are the questions which we propose to investigate and expound . But the ground is tender and the path untrodden , and we
beg the reader ' s forbearance as we venture , by cautious steps , to feel our way into one of the most charming recesses of nature . True , philosophers and physiologists , metaphysicians and naturalists , have pursued the subject over hedge and ditch with a ready pen , but there is one thing to be observed which makes us shun their wandering paths , and that is , they are all divergent from each other , and never meet . There is little inductive reasoning , and no one point of universal concession . Take a few examples : —
Des Cartes referred all the actions of the lower animals to the simple laws of mechanism , considering brutes as mere automata , never acting themselves , but always acted upon by external agency or impulse ; thus placing the animal in a scale of being , even below the vegetable . This is turning the mouse into a mouse-trap .
Selvetius and Darwin came to the rescue , and , like true knights , endowed the injured with exaggerated and imaginary honours ; maintaining that most of the actions of the lower animals were the result of a proee * ss of reasoning . Smellie reversed the order , and viewed both man and brute as under the domination of a common instinct , of which he represented
the reasoning faculty as the result . JBtiffon referred all instinct to sensation impelling the animal to seek the pleasures and avoid the pains of the moment , without any ulterior design , Foley disputes the truth of this theory , and endeavours to illustrate its fallacy .
Addison , enveloped in this literary fog , gravely opined that " there is nothing more mysterious than instinct . " Mystery , however , is not the child of science , and truth generally lies artificially concealed between the extremes of error ; and here it will be found in the present instance . Both man and beast partake