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