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1. Illustrations of Instinct, deduced from the Habits of British Animals. By Jonathan Couch, F.L.S., Member of the Royal Geological Society, and of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, &c. London: John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row.

1847.

2. On Instinct. A Lecture delivered before the Dublin Natural History Society, November 11, 1842. By Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. Dublin: M'Glashan. London: Orr and Co. 1847.

AFTER all that has been written by natu-, how many animal actions may be discovered, ralists and philosophers upon the subject of which by no possibility can be referred to Instinct, Paley's definition of that faculty" a propensity prior to experience," but is perhaps the best in few words that has which are readily explicable on the ground been given. He says, "An instinct is a of their being the result either of instrucpropensity prior to experience, and inde- tion or of reflection! It is undeniable that pendent of instruction ;" and it is a want domestic animals have acquired many habits of attention to this simple proposition that which, so far from being serviceable in a has led to the confounding two perfectly wild condition, would rather have unfitted distinct faculties-Instinct and Reason. their possessors for a life passed in a state For while Instinct, in the words of Arch- of nature; certain of these habits could bishop Whately, is invariably a blind im- obviously never have been acquired without pulse "towards some end which the agent tuition, and tuition can never be available does not aim at or perceive." Reason, on without more or less of reason to act upon. the other hand, may be said to lead the It is no answer to this to say that the acagent to take certain steps in order to bring tions of our domestic animals are perpetuabout some end which he does aim at and ated by transmission from one generation to perceive. another; such an objection does not do It is the confusion of ideas above spoken away with the primary necessity for the of which has given rise to a denial of the possession of a faculty superadded and suexercise of reason by the inferior animals. perior to instinct, on the part of their proMan, claiming for himself the exclusive genitors, who, by mere instinct, would possession of reason, as raising him high in never have been able to acquire the habits the scale of being above "the beasts that they have transmitted to their offspring. perish," has been but too ready to refer all We are happy to find our opinions on this their actions to the "blind impulse" by subject supported by no less authority than him named instinct; but, properly studied, Archbishop Whately, who, in an admirable

VOL. XIII. No. IV.

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little work to which we shall often have occasion to refer, thus clearly distinguishes between Instinct and Reason as the causes

of animal actions.

"When I speak of animal instinct, it should be remembered that I include man. Man possesses instinct, though in a lower degree than most other animals: his inferiority in this being compensated by his superiority in other respects. And again as man possesses instinct in a lower degree than the brutes, so, in a lower degree than man, brutes—at least the higher brutes-possess reason. As some things felt and done by man are allowed to be instinctive as hunger and thirst, for instance, are evidently instincts-so many things done by brutes, at least by the higher description of brutes, would be, if done by man, regarded as resulting from the exersise of reasonI mean when the actions of the brute spring, to all appearance, from the same impulse as the rational acts of man.

case.

"In many instances we know this is not the A man builds a house from reason-a bird builds a nest from instinct; and no one would say

im

that the bird, in this, acted from reason. But, in other instances, man not only does the same things as the brutes, but does them from the same kind of impulse, which should be called instinctive, whether in man or brute. And again; several things are done by brutes, which are evidently not instine ive, but, to all appearance, no less reasonable than human acts; being not only the same actions, but done from the same pulse. I shall not at present inquire what is called reason, any more than what is denominated instinct. I would only say that several things which are allowed by every one to be acts of reason when done by a man, are done by brutes manifestly under a similar impulse-1 mean such things as brutes learn to do, either by their own unaided experience, or as taught by man. Docility is evidently characteristic of reason. To talk of an elephant, a horse, or a dog, doing by instinct such things as it has been taught, would be as absurd as to talk of a child's learning to read and write by instinct.

"But, moreover, brutes are, in many instances, capable of learning even what they have not been taught by man. They have been found able to combine, more or less, the means of accomplishing a certain end, from having learned by experience that such and such means so applied would conduce to it. The higher animals, of course, show more of reason than the lower."-Lecture, P. 8.

The distinction between instinct and reason may, we think, be clearly understood, if we agree to range under the former term all those customary habits and actions which are common to all the individuals of a species, and to designate by the latter name all peculiar adaptations to such unaccustomed circumstances and situations

as in any way interfere with the usual routine business of animal life. Thus, under ordinary circumstances, the honey-bee will go on, generation after generation, constructing its waxen cells upon the one uniform plan derived from its ancestors, and which, in turn, will be transmitted to its descendants. But should any obstacle interfere with the regular and accustomed mode of working; or should an accident disarrange or damage any portion of the structure already completed; the insect will, in the one case, promptly vary its mode of working so as to accommodate itself to the unwonted obstruction; and in the other will as promptly set about repairing the mischief. The regular routine of comb-making, and other usual avocations pursued by the bee, properly come under the denomination of instinct; the unaccustomed efforts to accommodate itself to an unexpected difficulty, to overcome an obstacle, perhaps never before met with, or to repair the effects of an accident for the first time experienced, we should consider as being dictated by reason.

Among birds, many beautiful instances are on record of departure from their castomary instinct-prompted modes of nidifi cation. Mr. Couch gives the following anecdote of a martin, whose proceeding was certainly the result of the exercise of some faculty of a higher grade than mere instinct.

"An instance is remembered, where, from some such cause of suspicion as the stability of the edifice, a martin had recourse to the wonderful expedient of working in a straw, as a binding beam, along the curve of the structure! The ends were, it seems, secured without difficulty; but the efforts of the little builder to bend down the arch, formed by the rising of the middle, were in vain; for, whenever the pressure was removed, it persisted in maintaining its elasticity. The baffled bird glanced about, as if in contemplation of the difficulty, and seemed ready to receive any suggestion which might be offered, till, tired of watching the invariable result of so many efforts made in vain, the observer walked on. Returning an hour or two afterwards, the little architect was observed to have resorted to the only plan which could be effectual; he had left the ends free, which thus projected a little from the mortar, and the structure was complete at last."-p. 216.

In the above case of the martin, the influence of both instinct and reason must be recognised by the one faculty the bird was prompted to build its nest; by the other it was taught both the necessity of deviating from its usual plan of building, and the

only method of subduing a refractory ad-Iver that the bell had been rung by pussy, who junct and rendering it subservient to the frequently repeated the act whenever she wanted purpose for which it was employed. to get out of the parlor."-p. 10.

A similar combination of the influence of instinct and reason is evinced in the

proceedings of the bird named in the following extract: likewise from Mr. Couch's volume.

The second example we quote from Mr. Couch's "Illustrations." He says,—

"There was, within my knowledge, in the house of my parentage, a small cupboard, in "The nest of the holm thrush (Turdus visci- which were kept milk, butter, and other requisites vorus) is also sometimes modified according to cir- for the tea-table: and the door was confined with cumstances, and evidently from a calculation of a lock, which, from age, and frequent use, could what the bulk and weight of the expected young was always kept in the lock, in which it revolved be easily made to open. To save trouble, the key ones may require. Its usual site for building is among the firmer branches of a tree, with little on a very slight impulse. It was often a subject regard to concealment; where, trusting to the sup- found wide open, and the milk or butter greatly of remark that the door of th's cupboard was port afforded by those diverging branches, it does not follow the example of its kindred species in notwithstanding the persuasion that the door had diminished, without any imaginable reason, and strengthening the edifice with a lining of plaster. On one occasion, however, an otherwise excel- certainly been regularly locked; but it was accilent situation in a pear-tree lay under the inconve- dent that led to the detection of the offender. On nience of having too wide a space between two watching carefully, the cat was seen to seat herout of the four surrounding props; and this por-side of the bow of the key, it was, at last made to self on the table; and by repeated patting on the tion of the structure was accordingly the only part that was strengthened by the addition of a firm layer of clay."-p. 219.

In

turn, when a slight pull on the door caused it to move on its hinges. It had proved a fortunate discovery for puss for a long time before she was taken in the fact."—p. 196.

We ourselves once knew a fine cat which back-kitchen door of a house in the counwas in the habit of lifting the latch of the

Mr. Couch also gives two beautiful examples of the exercise of reason or reflection on the part of the water-ouzel (Cinclus aquaticus), a little bird, allied to the thrushes, which builds near rapid streams. We would gladly quote the passage in full,try, and of pushing open the door, whenbut it would occupy too much space. ever he wished to get in from his rambles both instances the bird constructed her nest catch and hang by the bow of the latch in the garden. Jumping up, puss would near a road, along which there was frequent with one paw, while with the other he passing of people. the latch within; and this, perhaps, sevewould pull down the lever, so as to raise ral times in the course of the day, if the door happened to be shut at the time ingress was required.

Among quadrupeds, instances of the exercise of this superior faculty, in addition to the performance of actions from the mere instinctive promptings of animal nature, especially among the domesticated species, so frequently occur, that no one can be at a loss to call to mind many cases in point. The cat furnishes three examples so much to the purpose, that we offer no apology for introducing them. The first is related by Dr. Whately in his lecture, from personal knowledge.

bells and opening doors form no part of the It will be readily granted that ringing convenient such acts may prove to the inordinary avocations of feline life, however viduals practising them. These actions coming under the denomination of instincts, cannot therefore be considered as properly since they were evidently performed under the impression that certain consequences "This cat lived many years in my mother's family, and its feats of sagacity were witnessed by would follow the adoption of such expediher, my sisters, and myself. It was known, not ents; the animals were therefore acting ramerely once or twice, but habitually, to ring the tionally, since in all the cases related they parlor-bell, whenever it wished the door to be were acting with a view to, and for the opened. Some alarm was excited on the first oc- sake of, some end" which was perceived casion that it turned bell ringer. The family had by them. On the case first named, Dr. retired to rest, and in the middle of the night the Whately makes the following just obserparlor-bell was rung violently; the sleepers were startled from their repose, and proceeded down vations, which readily apply to all the stairs with a poker and tongs, to interrupt, as they dog referred to is described as having perthought, the predatory movement of some bur formed an action equally indicative of the glar. But they were agreeably surprised to disco-exercise of reflection.

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"Here are two clear cases of acts done by a animals in common with those of a higher cat and dog, which, if done by a man, would be organization. We have read this chapter called reason. Every one would admit that the with great attention, but must confess actions were rational-not, to be sure, proceeding ourselves utterly unable to discover at from a very high exertion of intellect; but the dog at least rationally jumped into the stream at a dis- what step in the ascending scale of anitance higher up from the boat, into which he mal organization Mr. Couch would place wished to get, because he found that the stream the first appearance of instinct. That he would thus carry him to it, instead of from it; does not recognise its existence up to a and the cat pulled the parlor-bell, because she certain point is evident from the following had observed that when it was rung by the family, the servant opened the door. It is quite clear that passage with which the chapter commences: if such acts were done by man, they would be re- To acquire an accurate idea of the intrinsic garded as an exercise of reason; and I do not know nature of the faculty termed Instinct, it will be rewhy, when performed by brutes, evidently by a si-quisite, first, to notice the conditions of living exmilar mental process, as far as can be judged, they istence below it [?] in the scale of nature; in order should not bear the same name. To speak of a that, by tracing the successive manifestations of cat's having an instinct to pull a bell, when desir- the increasing faculties, we may understand the ous of going out at the door, or of an elephant's precise station which this faculty occupies in the lifting up a cannon, or beating down a wall, at his ascending scale, and the means through which its driver's command, by instinct, would be to use operations are developed.”—p. 1. words at random."-p. 10.

66

This "ascending scale" has proved to In order therefore to determine whether our author a veritable sliding scale, and a given act performed by an animal is the one upon which, had he been wise, he result of instinct or of reason, we shall, for would never have ventured his reputation. the most part, be able to draw an accurate His flounderings, in the unlucky attempt to conclusion if we can learn whether the act trace the progress of sensibility and organiin question is one habitually and undeviat-zation from monad up to man, irresistibly ingly performed by all the individuals of a species under similar circumstances, or is only induced for the express purpose of overcoming some obstacle, or of obtaining some end desiderated by the individual

animal.

Turning now to Mr. Couch's volume, we are compelled to express our regret that an author, who is evidently a most accurate observer, and, we are fully aware, an industrious collector of facts connected with Natural History, should be so incompetent to reason upon the facts observed. His book contains a great number of interesting anecdotes, but strung together without method, and interspersed with observations which have often little or no bearing upon the facts they are intended to explain. As a sequel to Priscilla Wakefield's" Instinct Displayed," the book is a good book enough, and full of pleasant reading withal, as the extracts already given will have shown; but as a work, one object of which is 66 to point out the path by which a better knowledge may be acquired of the intellectual existence" of animals, it is a complete failure.

remind us of the upward flight of a certain Milton; with this difference, however, that personage through chaos, as described by the one eventually succeeds in extricating himself, while Mr. Couch's futile attempts to feel his way only make "confusion worse confounded." He, for example, commences his inquiry with the study of "the structure and functions of those creatures which possess the simplest organization, and which are consequently lowest in the order of existence;" and he goes on to say:

"It cannot be affirmed of these, that they have any actions, in the usual sense of that word; and their functions are the simplest results of the comindependent existence by the endowment of life; position or structure of their tissue, quickened into by which we mean that ultimate principle that to a living entity is what gravity is to a dead mass, but whose real nature has eluded the researches of the inquirer in both cases. The whole duty of the existence of these creatures appears to be

to draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;' and the only faculty with which they seem to be endued for this purpose, is what Bichat has denominated organic sensibility, and Dr. Fletcher, irritation."-p. 2.

In the chapter on "Instinct, and the We omit all the author's elaborate reamode of studying it," with which the vo-sonings upon endosmose and the other lume opens, Mr. Couch goes into some functions of the simple tissue composing elaborate arguments, the object of which the animals forming this first step, and prowould appear to be to prove that instinct ceed a few pages onward, where we find it is a faculty not enjoyed by the lower stated that

"The next ascending step in the scale of exist-; ence is, when organic sensibility, or, as it may be more properly termed, irritability, is added to the former condition."—p. 7.

Turning back to p. 2, we find that "the former condition" here alluded to, is already stated to be characterized by the presence of organic sensibility or irritation -another name for irritability; so that the second step cannot be said to have made any great advance upon the first, except in having received a double measure of the same quality. This looks a little like confusion of ideas; but at p. 17, we meet with what has the appearance of being a flat contradiction. There, Mr. Couch says :— "There are no living beings in which this faculty of irritability or excitability exists alone; but there are families in which no other addition be

sides this is made to the principle that first came

under our consideration."

plies to all other instinctive actions, without exception.

But, leaving this lucid introductory chapter and its contradictions, we will endeavor to discover if there be any and what step in the scale of organized being, where the presence of instinct, as the term ought to be understood, is not displayed by the actions of animals. In this inquiry we will reverse the plan pursued by Mr. Couch, and commence with animals (excluding man) usually considered to stand highest in the scale of organization; and omitting all disquisitions upon the nature and functions of tissues and organs, we shall confine ourselves to the plan of adducing a few examples of actions performed by certain members of each family in succession.

No one will venture to deny, that either mammals or birds, the two highest sub-kingdoms of the Vertebrata, are actuated by the faculty termed instinct, in the performBe it remembered, that animals occupy- ance of all the important functions of life. ing the first step of the "ascending scale" Mammals, by instinct, allay their feelings of being, are, at p. 2, said to be actuated of hunger and thirst, and continue their by "organic sensibility" or irritation kind; and some, as the beaver, almost apalone; that to this sensibility, in the seproach the boundaries of reason by the cond step, is added more "organic sensi-skill displayed in constructing a habitability" or irritability, and nothing else, at tion. Birds instinctively provide the p. 7; and now, at p. 17, we are told that "procreant cradle" for their expected offthere are no living beings in which this spring, and in many cases actually collect faculty of irritability or excitability exists for their young certain descriptions of food alone." Truly, if it were Mr. Couch's ob- which the parent hirds are not in the habit ject to mystify his subject and his readers of partaking of, and which, when they at the same time, we must confess that he have no families to provide for, and are cahas succeeded to admiration. The more tering for themselves, they would pass by especially as, at p. 172, we find the follow-unheeded. Passing on to reptiles, no more ing passage, which completely contradicts striking instance of their being actuated what has been said in the introductory by instinct need be adduced than that of chapter in reference to the performance of certain conditions of animal life, by some power little removed from a mere mechanical action of the lowest organized tissues:— "Among the lowest, in point of excellence, of the emanations of instinct, is the sensation of hunger, and the craving for food-an impulse common to all sensitive creatures, whereby they are instigated to the exertion of a variety of faculties, which partake alike of the nature of instinct and reflection.

"And the mode of securing this object is in each race and species skilfully varied to suit the necessity of their case. If the proceeding be less elaborate in the more limited intellect, it is not the less appropriate to the nature of the creature to be supplied."

That this really is universally applicable, as Mr. Couch observes, "to all sensitive creatures," high and low, is indisputable; and the remark, we apprehend, also ap

the young boa constrictor mentioned by
Mr. Couch. This animal, although six feet
long, and with a capacity of jaws and
throat sufficient to allow of its swallowing
a much larger prey, went through the pre-
liminary process of crushing a pigeon in its
folds before sucking it in.
"The interpos-

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ed portion of this proceeding," says Mr. Couch, appeared to be entirely unnecessary, so far as concerned its capacity of swallowing this prey; but it seemed to be instinctively unavoidable; and the age of the creature was decisive to show that it could never have previously had an opportunity of practising it on any animal that by its bulk could have rendered so complex an operation necessary." Here then we have a clear case of the impulse of " a propensity prior to experience."

From the nature of the medium inhabit

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