Note 44-1 — Chapter II

But there is no ground for the most positive of philosophers to reject the doctrine of innate ideas when put in a certain way. The instincts and habits of the lower animals by which they obtain food, migrate, and perpetuate their kind, are in obedience to particular congenital impressions, and correspond to definite anatomical and morphological relations. No one pretends their knowledge is experimental. Just so the human cerebrum has received, by descent or otherwise, various sensory impressions peculiar to man as a species, which are just as certain to guide his thoughts, actions, and destiny, as is the cerebrum of the insectivorous aye-aye to lead it to hunt successfully for larvæ.