.NDE2.ODE

Animal Psychology The endowments of animals have, in all ages of the world, excited discussion; but this discussion has neither inaugurated a science, nor offered any exposition of the intellectual life of animals the lower orders of animals, in the least degree satisfactory. There are difficulties however; one of which, and a very serious one, is the want of a sufficient knowledge of their habits; another may be found in the abysmal nature of all intellectual science; but a greater than either arises from that stupendous blunder {as well as} and subtile fraud upon the animal races, the {introduction} mention of the term “instinct.” We have here a system of philosophy in a deffinition; {we have} an installation of the supernatural in the place of the rational, which silences at once all inquiry into the facts. If it be true that the acts of animals are the result of an inward persuasion, or a spontaneous impulse beyond their control; or the {deed} work {act} of an agent which performs ignorantly and blindly a work of intelligence and knowledge then the term instinct {(disposes of the whole subject)} (will answer all the ends it was designed to subserve); but on the contrary if these acts are the direct result of perception, reflection and volition, then the deffinition is absurd, and the question subject is open like any other to inquiry into the facts. It would seem to require no argument to prove, that all animals are endowed with a principle which performs the same office in governing their conduct, {that} which the human mind does in regulating {the} man’s conduct of man {yet instinctists must deny this}. But we shall only /venture to/ [lightly crossed out] assume that man is endowed with a {certain} principle, which is distinct from the body, to which all of his acts are referable as a cause or motive power, except such as are {strictly} involuntary. We shall also assume that all animals below man are endowed with a certain principle, which is distinct from the body, to which their acts are referable as a cause or motive power, except such as are strictly involuntary.