THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS

VOL. V, MAY, 1860, NO. XXXI






INSTINCT.


"Instinct is a great matter," quoth Falstaff, when called upon to find
out a device, a "starting-hole," to hide himself from the open and
apparent shame of having run away from the fight and hacked his sword
like a handsaw with his own dagger. Like a valiant lion, he would not
turn upon the true prince, but ran away upon instinct. Although the
peculiar circumstances of the occasion upon which the subject was
presented to Falstaff's mind were not very favorable to a calm
consideration of it, he was undoubtedly correct in saying that instinct
is a great matter. "If, then, the tree may be known by the fruit," says
Falstaff, "as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it,
there is virtue in that Falstaff"; and it is proper that his authority
should be quoted, even upon a question of metaphysical science.

That psychological endowment of animals which we denominate instinct
has in every age been a matter full of wonder; and men of thought have
found few more interesting subjects of inquiry. But it is confessed