by appetite, or stormed by passion; habit may render its operations so swift and easy, that we cannot note and remember their succession. But when free from these disturbing forces, it acts always with a full perception of the end in view, and by a deliberate choice of means aims at its accomplishment. We have the immediate testimony of consciousness, that we never select means until experience has informed us of their efficacy, and never use them but with a full knowledge of their relation to the end.

Each of the qualities of instinct on which I have remarked is a peculiarity of it in respect to reason, and serves more or less to distinguish it from that faculty; while the aggregate of these peculiarities shows conclusively that the difference between the two is fundamental. This will appear more clearly from a summary of the several points that have been considered. It has been shown, then, that instinct exists before experience, and is wholly independent of instruction; that it is not susceptible of education or improvement of any kind, either in the individual or the race; that it works successfully towards important and remote ends by the use of complex and laborious means, yet without any apparent consciousness of the difference between means and ends; that it acts, in truth, by impulse, and not through reflection, at least, as much so as the man who has gained by habit the power of performing a long operation without reflecting on any part of it; that it is limited to a few objects, and out of the narrow sphere of work required for these objects it is altogether useless; and that, consequently, it appears in the same animal, and at the same time, both as the most brutish stupidity and as the highest wisdom, for some of its creations shame the greatest ingenuity of man. As we are confessedly ignorant of the internal constitution of both faculties, reason and instinct, and are compelled to judge of them exclusively by their outward manifestations, it is difficult to conceive of two powers which should appear more unlike.

It is vain to form conjectures respecting the inward essence, or ultimate cause, of a faculty which appears to human reason so anomalous. Yet one or two points, perhaps, may be satisfacto

rily made out respecting the mental constitution of brutes, which will afford us a glimpse of the final end of their being. Whether instinct be the mere action of a curious machine, or the effect of the constant agency and promptings of the Deity, or the working of some still more secret principle which is nowhere manifested but in animal life, it is not a free and conscious power of the animal itself in which it appears and works. It is, if I may so speak, a foreign agency, which enters not into the individuality of the brute. The animal appears subject to it, controlled and guided by it, but not to possess and apply it by its own will for its own chosen purposes. We cannot conceive of wisdom apart from reflection and consciousness; there is an absurdity in the very terms of such a statement. The skill and ingenuity, then, which appear in the works of the lower animals are not referable to the animals themselves, but must proceed from some higher power working above the sphere of their consciousness. This assistance is meted out to them for specific and limited ends, and has no effect on the rest of their conduct, which is governed by their own individuality. In its highest functions, the brute appears only as the blind and passive instrument of a will which is not its own. The power is granted to it for a time, but is not susceptible of improvement by practice while in its keeping, is invariably applied in the same way, and with perfect success, and is withdrawn as soon as the purposes for which it was given are answered. No moral character is attributable to a faculty which is unconsciously exerted, and no moral aim can exist where progress or change is impossible. When deprived of this extraneous power, or viewed apart from it, the brute appears in its true light, as the creature of a day, born not for purposes connected with its own being, but as an humble instrument, or a fragmentary part, in the great circle of animated nature, which, as a whole, is subservient to higher ends.

LECTURE III.

THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTIVITY IN HUMAN NATURE.

THE object of my last Lecture was, by a brief inquiry into the mental constitution of the animals inferior to man, to bring out into a stronger light those peculiarities of human nature which show what is the purpose of our being in this life, and what are the leading features in the scheme of Divine Providence for the government of man. I do not forget that the first object of this course is to show what are the moral attributes of God, and to ascertain if there is sufficient evidence to justify us in imputing to him those qualities of infinite wisdom and benevolence, of perfect justice and holiness, which the religious sentiment within us instinctively requires in the person towards whom it is directed. But these qualities can be manifested to our eyes only in his works and ways; and it is by studying these, that is, by ascertaining what human nature is, how it is endowed, and what is the part which it has to perform in this stage of existence, that we can arrive at any certain and precise knowledge of the Divine nature. Now we are so much accustomed to take for granted a knowledge of the human constitution, both intellectual and moral, it is so much easier to use our faculties in the study of external objects than of the mind itself, that, without some object of comparison or contrast, it is difficult to understand, or, at any rate, to have a clear and lively sense of, those endowments by which we are distinguished among God's creatures, and of the purposes for which these distinguishing attributes were granted to us. We

see the work that is accomplished by brutes, and how they are fitted for its performance. We are conscious of the possession of higher faculties than theirs, and we seek to know how our task and our destiny differ from theirs; or whether, in truth, we have any task set to us, or any great end to obtain. The character and intentions of the Deity must appear most clearly from a comparative examination of the two higher orders of animated being which he has made.

One point I may now assume, as sufficiently established in the Lectures of the last winter. It is inconsistent, I do not say with infinite wisdom, for perhaps we are not justified at this stage of the argument in considering any of the attributes of God, except his duration, as infinite, but it is inconsistent with the transcendent wisdom which is everywhere visible in the works. of creation, to suppose that any thing was created in vain, or that a difference is established between two orders of being without any reason for that difference. To act with reference to improper or ill-chosen ends is the part of imperfect intelligence; but to act without any end at all is mere brutishness, or a sign of the absolute want of understanding. We cannot believe that the creation of man, or the constitution of his being in any respect, is as meaningless as seems the direction of the clouds that float athwart a summer's sky.

A comparison of the human with the brute mind shows, first, that self-development is one of the great ends of our being here, and that the fulfilment of this purpose is left in a great degree to our own free-will. It is not enough that the intellect should be competent for its task; the work of preparation, or the act of rendering it competent, is itself the first object for which we are urged to any kind of exertion. Discipline and progress, not mere possession or enjoyment, is the great purpose of human life. The workings of instinct, if we look only at the importance and difficulty of the results obtained, often surpass the most strenuous efforts of the conscious mind. Man, as I have said, in fact, there is hardly

may go to school to the ant and the bee;

one of the inferior animals whose habits he may not study with a

well-founded hope of obtaining direction for his own labors. Why, then, is he not led, unconsciously and passively, as the brutes are, by the wisest and most effective means, selected without any effort of his own judgment and ingenuity, to the immediate accomplishment of far more brilliant results than he has ever yet worked out by the natural exercise of the faculties with which he is at present endowed? Why, for instance, after all his bitter experience in the matters of government and social institutions, and after the wisdom of thirty centuries has been exhausted in pondering upon the several problems of social philosophy, is he still unable to form a society which, in point of orderly arrangement, harmony, and effective coöperation for the general good, shall even approach the excellence of a community of bees? His faculties, his powers both of body and mind, are unquestionably higher than theirs; the gregarious appetite or passion with him is as strong; and his happiness, if not his safety, is consequently as dependent as theirs on the perfection of the arrangements which may be made for living and working in company with his fellows. Why, then, has not the same Almighty Guide, who condescends to order and sustain the economy of a hive, placed man also, without any effort of his own, in a perfect social state, thus saving him from the disorder, contention, anarchy, and misrule, the long and painful recital and description of which now constitutes the history of the human race? It were surely as easy to do this for man as for an insect; and why, then, is it not equally desirable in the two cases?

There can be but one answer to this question. It is, that an improved condition of society bestowed at once by the free gift of the Creator, instead of being attained by human trial and effort, is not an end so desirable as that very unassisted trial and effort, however costly these may seem in respect to human happiness or mere enjoyment. He who complains of the necessity of this labor, and thinks it an impeachment of the goodness of God that the object cannot be acquired without it, really envies the condition of an insect, who is led blindfold, but in absolute security, to the fulfilment of the conditions of his existence.