On instinct / [Philip Bury Duncan].

  • Philip Bury Duncan
Date:
1820?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On instinct / [Philip Bury Duncan]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/34 (page 5)
    consideration of an useful purpose, and exhibit as much speculation and ingenuity as a tailor does in repairing a tattered garment ? In short, is instinct a totally different faculty from reason ? Are brute animals mere machines, and is every act they per¬ form guided by the inspiration of their all-wise and benevolent Creator? It may be then asked, were all the actions of our first parents in paradise in¬ stinctive, which (according to Paley’s definition) were prior to experience, and independent of all instruction but divine, which Pope makes the true characteristic of instinct ? In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man. It is certain that many contradictory opinions have been entertained respecting the nature of in¬ stincta. Smellie says that no distinction exists between instinctive and rational motives; whilst Dr. Reid attributes even the act of breathing to in¬ stinct, which seems at first sight to confound this principle with mere mechanism; yet not wholly so, for we breathe during profound sleep, when we certainly do not exert our reason. Reason, instinct, and habit have all been con¬ founded together; but this distinction of them has been proposed: Actions performed with a view to accomplish a certain end are called rational, the end in view being the motive to their performance. Instinctive actions have a cause, namely, the internal impulse by which they are spontaneously performed; but a Reason, when press’d, will in the field appear, But honest instinct serves a volunteer.