Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 by Various
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Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860
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It is to be noticed in this connection that many animals are gifted
with a wonderful sensibility of the senses,--the action of which is
sometimes mistaken not only for the action of instinct, but for that of
reason also. The acuteness of the sense of smell in the dog, which
enables him to trace the steps of his master for miles through crowded
streets by the infinitesimal odor which his footsteps left upon the
pavement, is quite beyond our conception. Equally incomprehensible to
us are the keenness of sight and wide range of vision of the eagle,
which enable him to discover the rabbit nipping the clover amid the
thick grass at a distance at which a like object would be to us
altogether imperceptible. The chameleon is enabled to seize the little
insects upon which it feeds by darting forth its wonderfully
constructed tongue with such rapidity and with such delicacy of
perception that "wonder-loving sages" have told us that it feeds upon
the air.
It has been the belief of some observers that some animals have senses
by which they are enabled to take cognizance of things which are not
revealed directly to our senses. It is easy enough to conceive of
beings endowed with a more perfect perception of the external world,
both in its condition and the number of objects it presents, than we
have, by means of other organs of outward perception. Voltaire, in one
of his philosophical romances, represents an inhabitant of one of the
planets of the Dog-Star as inquiring of the Secretary of the Academy of
Sciences in the planet of Saturn, at which he had recently arrived in a
journey through the heavens, how many senses the men of his globe had;
and when the Academician answered, that they had seventy-two, and were
every day complaining of the smallness of the number, he of the
Dog-Star replied, that in his globe they had very near one thousand
senses, and yet with all these they felt continually a sort of listless
inquietude and vague desire which told them how very imperfect they
were. But we shall not travel so far as this for our illustrations. We
have all seen in the fields and about our houses birds and insects
which seem to take cognizance of the electric state of the atmosphere;
and we have learnt to feel quite sure, when, early in the morning of a
summer's day, we see fresh piles of sand around the holes of the ants,
that a storm is approaching, although the sky may as yet be cloudless
and the air perfectly serene. In like manner birds perceive the
approach of rain, and are all busy oiling and smoothing their feathers
in preparation for it; and then, before the clouds break away, they
come out from their retreats and joyfully hail the return of fair
weather. So, by some analogous sense, the birds of passage are informed
of the approach of winter and the return of spring.
It is doubtless true that in some animals the senses are immediately
connected with instincts which assist and extend their operation.
Metaphysicians and physiologists are agreed that the perception of
distance is an acquired knowledge. The sense of sight by itself
principally makes us conversant with extension only. The painting upon
the retina of the eye presents all external things with flat surfaces
and at the same distance. Before we can have any correct ideas of
distance, we must be able to compare the result of the sense of sight
with the result of the sense of feeling. By experience we in time come
to judge something of distance by the size of the image which an object
makes upon the retina, but more by our acquired knowledge of the form
and color of external things. It is true that the eyes of many animals
are constructed like those of man; but they do not learn to judge of
distance by the same slow process. It is known from experiment that
some animals have a perfect conception of distance at the moment of
their birth; and the young of the greater part of animals possess some
instinctive perception of this kind. "A flycatcher, for example, just
come out of its shell, has been seen to peck at an insect with an aim
as perfect as if it had been all its life engaged in learning the art."
And so when the hen takes her chickens out into the field for the first
time to feed, they seem to perceive very distinctly the relative
distance of all objects about them, and will run by the straightest
course when she calls them to pick up the little grains which she
points out to them. Without this instinctive power of determining the
relative distance and figure of objects, the young of most animals
would perish before their sense of sight could be perfected, as ours
is, by experience.
We have now noticed the chief characteristics of instinct: its
existence prior to all experience or instruction; its incapacity of
improvement, except within the narrow sphere of domestication; its
limitation to a few objects, and the certainty of its action within
these limits; the distinctness and permanence of its character for each
species; and its constant hereditary nature. In regard to the
uniformity of instinct throughout each species, it may be further
remarked, that this seems to be very constantly preserved in the lowest
divisions of the animal kingdom. Among the Articulates, also, instinct
appears almost unvarying; and it is in this department among the insect
tribes that the most striking manifestations of instinct are to be met
with. When we arrive among the higher orders of the Vertebrates, we
find in some species that each individual is capable of some
modification of its actions, according to the particular circumstances
in which it finds itself placed. But throughout the long series of
animals, from the polype to man, there is instinctive action more or
less in amount in every species, with, perhaps, the exception of man
alone. The variety of that endowment, which is adapted to definite
objects, means, and results, in each particular one of the five hundred
thousand species estimated to be now living, may well call forth our
admiration and astonishment at the magnitude and extent of the
prospective contrivance of the Creator. How various the relations of
all these animals to each other and to the inanimate world about them!
and yet how admirable the adjustments of that immaterial principle
which regulates their lives, so as to secure the well-being of each and
the symmetry of the general plan!
There has been much diversity of opinion as to the existence of
instincts in the human species,--some making the whole mind of man
nothing but a bundle of instincts, and others wholly denying him any
endowment of this nature, while others still have given him a complex
mental nature, and have, moreover, declared that intellect and instinct
in him are so interwoven that it is impossible to tell where the one
begins and the other ends. But we believe, with the author of "Ancient
Metaphysics," that in Nature, however intimately things are blended
together and run into each other like different shades of the same
color, the species of things are absolutely distinct, and that there
are certain fixed boundaries which separate them, however difficult it
may be for us to find them out. In regard to intelligence and instinct,
the two principles seem to us to be not more distinctly and widely
separated in their nature than in the provinces of their operation.
Sir Henry Holland, who believes that intelligence and instinct are
blended in man, admits that instincts, properly so called, form the
_minimum_ in relation to reason, and are difficult of definition from
their connection with his higher mental functions, but that, wherever
we can truly distinguish them, they are the same in principle and
manner of operation as those of other animals. He makes one
distinction, however, between the instincts of man and those of lower
animals,--that in the former they have more of individual character,
are far less numerous and definite in relation to the physical
conditions of life, and more various and extensive in regard to his
moral nature. But, on the other hand, Sir B.C. Brodie seems to be of
opinion that the majority of instincts belonging to man resemble those
of the inferior animals, inasmuch as they relate to the preservation of
the individual and the continuation of the species; and that when man
first began to exist, and for some generations afterwards, the range of
his instincts was much more extensive than it is at the present time.
When authorities so eminent as these differ so widely upon the
question, to what human instincts relate, we see at least that it is
very difficult to define and distinguish these instincts, and we may be
led to doubt their existence at all. Of that marvellous endowment which
guides the bee to fabricate its cells according to laws of the most
rigid mathematical exactness, and guides the swallow in its long flight
to its winter home, we agree with Professor Bowen, that there is no
trace whatever in human nature. The actions of man which have been
loosely described as instinctive belong for the most part to those
classes of actions which we have already shown to be in no proper sense
of the word instinctive, that is, those concerned in the appetites and
in the functions of organic life. There are also numerous automatic and
habitual actions which are liable to be mistaken for instincts. Some
have included in the category of instincts those intuitive perceptions
and primary beliefs which are a part of our constitution, and are the
foundation of all our knowledge. But these propensities of thought and
feeling are of a higher nature than mere instincts; they are immutable
laws of the human mind, which time and physical changes cannot reach:
they do not seem to depend upon the physical organization, but to be
inherent in the soul itself. If these are instincts, then, why are not
all the ways in which the mind exerts itself instincts also, and reason
itself an instinct?
There is hardly any human action, feeling, or belief, which has not
been ranged under the term instinct. Hunger and thirst have been called
instincts; so have the faculty of speech, the use of the right hand in
preference to the left, the love of society, the desire to possess
property, the desire to avoid danger and prolong life, and the belief
in supernatural agencies, upon which is engrafted the religious
sentiment. We cannot, in this paper, attempt to analyze these and many
other similar examples which have been given as illustrations of
instinct in treatises of high repute, and show that they do not at all
come within that class of actions which we contrast with reason. In
regard to those actions of early infancy which have often been adduced
as illustrations of instinct, the physiologists of the present day are
agreed that they are as mechanical as the act of breathing. To place
these upon the same level with the complex and wonderful operations of
the bee, the ant, and the beaver, is to admit that the instincts of the
latter are merely reflex actions following impressions on the nerves of
sense.
On the other hand, whether the animals inferior to man ever exercise
any conscious process of reasoning is a question which has often been
discussed, and upon which there is no general agreement. Instances of
the remarkable sagacity of some domesticated animals are often adduced
as proofs of reasoning on their part. Some of these wonderful feats may
be traced to the unconscious faculty of imitation, which even in man
often appears as a blind propensity, although he exercises an active
and rational imitation as well. Sometimes the mere association of
ideas, or the perception by animals that one thing is accompanied by
another or that one event follows another, is mistaken for that higher
principle which in man judges, reflects, and understands causes and
effects. When the dog sees his master take down his gun, his
blandishments show that he anticipates a renewal of the pleasures of
the chase. He does not reflect upon past pleasures; but, seeing the gun
in his master's hand, a confused idea of the feelings that were
associated with the gun in times past is called up. So the ox and the
horse learn to associate certain movements with the voice and gesture
of man. And so a fish, about the most stupid of all animals, comes to a
certain spot at a certain signal to be fed. These combinations are
quite elementary. This is quite another thing from that reciprocal
action of ideas on each other by which man perceives the relations of
things, understands the laws of cause and effect, and not only forms
judgments of the past, but draws conclusions which are laws for the
future. We find in the brute no power of attending to and arranging its
thoughts,--no power of calling up the past at will and reflecting upon
it. The animal has the faculty of memory, and, when this is awakened,
the object remembered may be accompanied by a train or attendance of
accessory notions which have been connected with the object in the
animal's past experience. But it never seems to be able to exercise the
purely voluntary act of recollection. It is not capable of comparing
one thing with another, so far as we can judge. If the animal could
exercise any true act of comparison, there would be no limit to the
exercise of it, and the animal would be an intelligent being; for the
result of a simple act of comparison is judgment, and reasoning is only
a double act of comparison. We have the authority of Sir William
Hamilton for saying that the highest function of mind is nothing higher
than comparison. Hence comes thought,--hence, the power of discovering
truth,--and hence, the mind's highest dignity, in being able to ascend
unassisted to the knowledge of a God. Those who hold that the minds of
the inferior animals are essentially of the same nature with that of
the human race, and differ only in degree, should reflect that the
distinguishing attribute of the human mind does not admit of degrees.
The faculty of comparison, in all its various applications, must be
either wholly denied or else wholly attributed. Hence, Pope is not
philosophical, when he applies the epithet "half-reasoning" to the
elephant. "As reasoning," says Coleridge, "consists wholly in a man's
power of seeing whether any two ideas which happen to be in his mind
are or are not in contradiction with each other, it follows of
necessity, not only that all men have reason, but that every individual
has it in the same degree." We gather also from the same acute writer
that in the simple determination, "black is not white," all the powers
are implied that distinguish man from other animals. If, then, the
brute reasoned at all, he would be a rational being, and would improve
and gain knowledge by experience; and, moreover, he would be a moral
agent, accountable for his conduct. "Would not the brute," asks an able
writer in the "Zoφlogical Journal," "take a survey of his lower powers,
and would he not, as man does, either rightly use or pervert them, at
his pleasure?"
It has been suggested by some one, that, by the law of merciful
adaptation, which extends throughout the universe, thought would not be
imprisoned and pent up forever in an intelligence wanting the power of
expression. But it is also to be noticed that the want of an articulate
language or a system of general signs puts it out of the power of
animals to perform a single act of reasoning. The use of language to
communicate wants and feelings is not peculiar to "word-dividing men,"
though enjoyed by them in a much higher degree than by other animals.
Doubtless every species of social animals has some kind of language,
however imperfect it may be. "We never watch the busy workers of the
ant-hill," says Acheta Domestics, (the author of "Episodes of
Insect-Life,") "stopping as they encounter and laying their heads
together, without being pretty certain that they are saying to each
other something quite as significant as 'Fine day.'" And when the
morning wakes the choral song of the birds, they seem to be telling
each other of their happiness. But though animals have a language
appropriate to the expression of their sensations and emotions, they
have no words, "those shadows of the soul, those living sounds." Words
are symbols of thoughts, and may be considered as a revelation of the
human mind. It is this use of language as an instrument of thought, as
a system of general signs, which, according to Bishop Whately,
distinguishes the language of man from that of the brute; and the same
eminent authority declares that without such a system of general signs
the reasoning process could not be conducted.
It is true, that we often see in the inferior animals manifestations of
deductions of intellect similar to those of the human mind,--only that
they are not made by the animals themselves, but for them and above
their conscious perception. "When a bee," says Dr. Reid, "makes its
combs so geometrically, the geometry is not in the bee, but in that
great Geometrician who made the bee, and made all things in number,
weight, and measure." Since the animal is not conscious of the
intelligence and design which are manifested in its instincts, which it
obeys and works out, the conscious life of the individual must be
wholly a life within the senses. The senses alone can give the animal
only an empirical knowledge of the world of its observation. The senses
may register and report facts, but they can never arrive at an
understanding of necessary truths; the source of this kind of knowledge
is the rational mind, which has an active disposition to draw out these
infallible laws and eternal truths from its own bosom. The main
tendency of the rational mind is not towards mere phenomena, but their
scientific explanation. It seeks to trace effects, as presented to us
by the senses, back to the causes which produced them; or contemplating
things wholly metaphysical, it seeks to follow out the laws which it
has itself discovered, till they have gone through a thousand probable
contingencies and lost themselves in numberless results. It is on
account of this capacity and tendency of the human mind to look through
fact to law, through individuals to classes, through effects to causes,
through phenomena to general principles, that the late Dr. Burnap was
led to declare, in a very interesting course of lectures which he
delivered before the Lowell Institute a few years since, that he
considered the first characteristic difference between the highest
species of animals and the lowest race of man to be a capacity of
science. But is not the whole edifice of human science built upon the
simple faculty of comparison?
This is the ultimate analysis of all the highest manifestations of the
human mind, whether of judgment, or reason, or intellect, or common
sense, or the power of generalization, or the capacity of science. We
have already quoted Hamilton to this effect, and we, moreover, have his
authority for saying that the faculty of discovering truth, by a
comparison of the notions we have obtained by observation and
experience, is the attribute by which man is distinguished as a
creature higher than the animals. We might also cite Leibnitz to the
effect that men differ from animals in being capable of the formation
of necessary judgments, and hence capable of demonstrative sciences.
But notwithstanding it seems so apparent that what is customarily
called reason is the distinguishing endowment which makes man the
"paragon of animals," we very often meet with attempts to set up some
other distinction. We cannot here go into an examination of these
various theories, or even allude to them specially. We will, however,
briefly refer to a view which was recently advanced in one of our
leading periodicals, inasmuch as it makes prominent a distinction which
we wish to notice, although it seems to us to be only subordinate to
the distinguishing attribute of the human mind which we have already
pointed out. It is said that self-consciousness is what makes the great
difference between man and other animals; that the latter do not
separate themselves consciously from the world in which they exist; and
that, though they have emotions, impulses, pains, and pleasures, every
change of feeling in them takes at once the form of an outward change
either in place or position. It is not intended, however, to be said
that they have no conscious perception of external things. We cannot
possibly conceive of an animal without this condition of consciousness.
A consciousness of an outward world is an essential quality of the
animal soul; this distinguishes the very lowest form of animal life
from the vegetable world; and hence it cannot possibly be, as has been
suggested by some, that there are any animate beings which have no
endowments superior to those which belong to plants. The plant is not
conscious of an outward world, when it sends out its roots to obtain
the nourishment which is fitting for itself; but the polype, which is
fixed with hundreds of its kind on the same coral-stock, and is able
only to move its mouth and tentacles, is aware of the presence of the
little craw-fish upon which it feeds, and throws out its lasso-cells
and catches it. The world of which the polype has any perception is not
a very large one. The outer world of a bird is vastly greater; and man
knows a world without, which is immeasurably large beyond that of which
any other animal is conscious, because both his physical organs and his
mental faculties bring him into far the most diversified and intimate
relations with all created things. He sees in every flower of the
garden and every beast of the field, in the air and in the sea, in the
earth beneath his feet and in the starry heavens above him, countless
meanings which are hidden to all the living world besides. To him there
is a world which has existed and a world that will exist. "Man," says
Protagoras, "is the measure of the universe." But he has a greater
dignity in being able to apprehend the world of thought within. "Whilst
I study to find how I am a microcosm or little world," says Sir Thomas
Browne, "I find myself something more than the great." Man can make
himself an object to himself and gain the deepest insight into the
workings of his own mind. This internal perception seems never to be
developed in other animals. We have already observed that they have no
thought of their own. The intelligence and design which they often
manifest in their actions are not the workings of their own minds. The
intelligence and design belong to Him who impressed the thought upon
the animal's mind and unceasingly sustains it in action. They
themselves are not conscious of any thought, but only of "certain dim
imperious influences" which urge them on. They are conscious of
feelings and desires and impulses. We could not conceive of the
existence of these affections in animals without their having an
immediate knowledge of them. Even "the function of voluntary motion,"
says Hamilton, "which is a function of the animal soul in the
Peripatetic doctrine, ought not, as is generally done, to be excluded
from the phenomena of consciousness and mind." The conscious life of
the irrational tribes seems, then, to be a life almost wholly within
the senses. They have nothing of that higher conscious personality
which belongs to man and is an attribute of a free intellect.
A general statement of the points made out in the foregoing inquiry
will more clearly show our conception of the nature and limitations of
instinct. First, we limited the word instinct so as to exclude all
those automatic and mechanical actions concerned in the simple
functions of organic life,--as also to exclude the operations of the
passions and appetites, since these seek no other end than their own
gratification. Then it was shown that instinct exists prior to all
experience or memory; that it comes to an instant or speedy perfection,
and is not capable of any improvement or cultivation; that its objects
are precise and limited; that within its proper sphere it often appears
as the highest wisdom, but beyond this is only foolishness; that it
uses complex and laborious means to provide for the future, without any
prescience of it; that it performs important and rational operations
which the animal neither intends nor knows anything about; that it is
permanent for each species, and is transmitted as an hereditary gift of
Nature; and that the few variations in its action result from the
development of provisional faculties, or from blind imitation. We were
led to conclude that instinct is not a free and conscious possession of
the animal itself. We found some points of resemblance between
intelligence in man and instinct in other animals,--but at the same
time points of dissimilarity, such as to make the two principles appear
radically unlike.
This brief summary presents nearly all that we can satisfactorily make
out respecting instinct; and at the same time it shows how much is
still wanting to a complete solution of all the questions which it
involves. And then there are higher mysteries connected with the
subject, which we do not attempt to penetrate,--mysteries in regard to
the creation and the maintenance of instinctive action: whether it be
the result of particular external conditions acting on the organization
of animals, or whether, as Sir Isaac Newton thought, the Deity himself
is virtually the active and present moving principle in them;--and
mysteries, too, about the future of the brute world: whether, as
Southey wrote,
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