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with the lowei * animals , as well as some peculiar to himself , we have no design to degrade our species , nor to utter a word of disparagement with reference to the most noble of earth ' s denizens , even him who was created after the very image of God .
For the sake of observing the rudimentary development of . our instinctive faculties naturally , we must begin at man ' s beginning , and survey him as a babe and suckling . Nature has provided for him at this period of his being the food he loves best—why cram him with gruel / butter , sugar , or other indigestible abominations ? Infants want neither artificial food nor physic . The little creature is
born with a propensity to suck , and it will suck anything which approaches its mouth ; why poison it with artificial messes , when a pure fountain of health and vigour is at hand ? But we are writing for a sensible brotherhood , and not for ignorant nurses ; we will therefore pass on . Instinct is not confined to infancy , but presides over the whole physical being of man , from the cradle to the grave .
There are many things necessary to be done for the preservation of human life , which , if we designed , we should not know how to do . These are done by instinct . Take , for instance , the act of swallowing , or , as the doctors have it , deglutition . A man knows well that he must swallow his food , or it is all over with him ; but he knows nothing of the nerves and muscles concerned in the act . He does not even know
how to use them , and he would positively starve if , before swallowing , he determined to study how it is to be done . See what a fool he is the first time he attempts to swallow a little pill . How desperately he gulps and struggles ; and after his best attempts , he finds the pill sticking in one of his teeth . He will swallow a bolus of food twenty times as large instinctively , without knowing that he is doing it . If he makes
it a task , an act of reason , it requires practice and experience before it can be well done , and then it is often accomplished with effort and difficulty . Some persons can never acquire the habit of artificial deglutition . And this is the case with many physical acts . There are thousands of men , and even some women , who do not know how to sigh : they do not know how to set about it , and often fail after many
energetic efforts ; but let it once become necessary , either from mental or physical causes , that the lungs of one of these persons should for an instant be well expanded with air , and he or she will sigh deeply without knowing it until it is done . Again , man is required to do certain other physical acts constantly , which he would forget to do , or would do imperfectly , if they were left to the dictation of reason . He must wink perpetually in order to moisten the
globe of the eye ; lie must swallow his saliva constantly in order to moisten his throat ; he must breathe regularly in order " to purify his blood . None of these things would he do constantly or regularly if they were left to reason : instinct does them perfectly . If a strong emotion engages the energy of the brain , the act of perpetually swallowing the saliva is for a moment arrested ; this fluid accumulates in the mouth , and a great effort is then required to gulp it down ; the effort , in fact , often betrays the emotion , even when an attempt is
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
with the lowei * animals , as well as some peculiar to himself , we have no design to degrade our species , nor to utter a word of disparagement with reference to the most noble of earth ' s denizens , even him who was created after the very image of God .
For the sake of observing the rudimentary development of . our instinctive faculties naturally , we must begin at man ' s beginning , and survey him as a babe and suckling . Nature has provided for him at this period of his being the food he loves best—why cram him with gruel / butter , sugar , or other indigestible abominations ? Infants want neither artificial food nor physic . The little creature is
born with a propensity to suck , and it will suck anything which approaches its mouth ; why poison it with artificial messes , when a pure fountain of health and vigour is at hand ? But we are writing for a sensible brotherhood , and not for ignorant nurses ; we will therefore pass on . Instinct is not confined to infancy , but presides over the whole physical being of man , from the cradle to the grave .
There are many things necessary to be done for the preservation of human life , which , if we designed , we should not know how to do . These are done by instinct . Take , for instance , the act of swallowing , or , as the doctors have it , deglutition . A man knows well that he must swallow his food , or it is all over with him ; but he knows nothing of the nerves and muscles concerned in the act . He does not even know
how to use them , and he would positively starve if , before swallowing , he determined to study how it is to be done . See what a fool he is the first time he attempts to swallow a little pill . How desperately he gulps and struggles ; and after his best attempts , he finds the pill sticking in one of his teeth . He will swallow a bolus of food twenty times as large instinctively , without knowing that he is doing it . If he makes
it a task , an act of reason , it requires practice and experience before it can be well done , and then it is often accomplished with effort and difficulty . Some persons can never acquire the habit of artificial deglutition . And this is the case with many physical acts . There are thousands of men , and even some women , who do not know how to sigh : they do not know how to set about it , and often fail after many
energetic efforts ; but let it once become necessary , either from mental or physical causes , that the lungs of one of these persons should for an instant be well expanded with air , and he or she will sigh deeply without knowing it until it is done . Again , man is required to do certain other physical acts constantly , which he would forget to do , or would do imperfectly , if they were left to the dictation of reason . He must wink perpetually in order to moisten the
globe of the eye ; lie must swallow his saliva constantly in order to moisten his throat ; he must breathe regularly in order " to purify his blood . None of these things would he do constantly or regularly if they were left to reason : instinct does them perfectly . If a strong emotion engages the energy of the brain , the act of perpetually swallowing the saliva is for a moment arrested ; this fluid accumulates in the mouth , and a great effort is then required to gulp it down ; the effort , in fact , often betrays the emotion , even when an attempt is