Note af — Chapter IV

It is quite conceivable that the presence of Reason may from its first dawn, give rise to a very wide difference between the highest animal instincts, and the lowest instinctive impulses of Man. The discussion would be far too extensive for these pages; but it is obvious that such a difference might clearly account for much that is obscure in the twilight territory of Mind.

Hume, however, appears to have thought otherwise, as may be perceived in the Conclusion of his Reason of Animals. From his mention of "experimental reasoning" and the instances adduced, he would seem to attribute our Inductive process to a simple instinct. He writes thus:—"Though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it which they derive from the original hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire as something very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish when we consider that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves, and in its chief operations is not directed by any such relations or comparison of ideas as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the instinct be different, yet still it is an instinct, which teaches a man to avoid the fire, as much as that which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery." Compare foot-note (a) to this chapter, p. 255 ante.