relate a thousand instances of this kind. The common man is well acquainted with them from repeated experience, and usually founds upon them his secret contempt of medicine. At the same time he judges inconsiderately. What does he know of the conditions and limitations that we must take such pains to discover before we dare either to sanction or to oppose the instincts of Nature in our patients? We are, indeed, obliged to do both; for either Nature and the physician are not infallible, or the most skilful physician is frequently incapable of distinguishing the desires originating in subtlety of understanding or obstinacy, from those dictated by the genuine animal instinct-the secret minister of Nature. There is no subject more deserving of close investigation than this. Addison considered nothing as more mysterious than the natural instinct of animals, which sometimes rises far above reason, and at others falls infinitely short of it. He could not venture to pronounce it a property of matter, neither could he, on account of its extraordinary effects, regard it as an attribute of an intelligence. He therefore looked upon it, like gravity in bodies, as an immediate impression of the First Mover, and as the Divine Power operating in its creatures. There cannot be a more judicious comparison than this. As gravity imparts to a body the skill to pursue invariably the shortest way to the centre of the earth, without having the least consciousness of this action; so instinct directs animal bodies to their natural destinations, as though Nature herself had thoroughly instructed them in the secrets of her views; and thus they perform actions which are consonant with the laws of wisdom without knowing any thing of the matter. As Nature has endued physical bodies with peculiar properties, such as gravity, attraction, and the like, so has she bestowed others on animal bodies; and, if I may be allowed the expression, incorporated the most essential maxims of her wisdom into living machines, just as an artist makes an automaton that performs certain human actions, but in other respects can do no more than any other machine. The whole animal kingdom is full of instances of this sort. It is not out of respect, as every reader will easily believe, that a certain beetle described by naturalists, buries the dead moles and toads which it finds, but the instinct which teaches it to subsist upon those animals, and to deposit its eggs in them, impels it to this action. The pigeons which are trained to carry letters to distant places are not more sensible than other pigeons: nothing but the blind instinct to return to their young governs them in this proceeding. It is requisite that they should have left young at the place to which they are to fly; and lest they should take a fancy to stop by the way to drink or to wash themselves, their feet are dipped at their departure in vinegar. The Soland geese in St. Kilda steal, as Martin informs us, the grass out of one another's nests, not for the sake of stealing, but because they pick up grass wherever they find it, to form a soft depository for their eggs and as these geese live together in flocks of many thousands, they find it every where in the nests of their companions. Highly as Ulloa extols the almost human caution and intelligence manifested by the mules in America in descending the lofty mountains, yet a closer examination will show that it is nothing but the fear of falling at the sight of the precipices, which occasions all their caution, without any farther consideration. If at Lima they stand with their legs wide apart when they hear a subterraneous rumbling, this proves nothing more than an habitual mechanical action acquired by frequent repetition; because when the earth shakes, they are obliged to assume a firmer position with their burdens, and they take the noise and the earthquake for one and the same thing, since the one invariably accompanies the other. Such is the real history of the supposed intelligence and cunning of animals. Nature must have known how far it was necessary for the skill which she conferred on animal bodies to extend, in order to the attainment of the purposes of self-preservation, self-defence, and the propagation of their kind. So much is certain, that all these instincts have their appointed limits, beyond which no animal can go; and hence it is, that the animals, so long as they follow their instincts, perform actions of apparently astonishing intelligence, but in other respects are so stupid as not to manifest the slightest trace of cunning in their operations. A hen, whose providence and perseverance we admire, when she lays her eggs in some sequestered spot, where she sits on and turns them, and almost sacrifices herself in her attention to them, bestows the same pains on a lump of chalk which is put under her. She leads her chickens about that they may learn to scratch up the ground and to seek worms and insects. At the same time she will tread upon one of them, and affrighted at the cries which the pain extorts from it, she clucks to warn and to soothe it; but yet she has not the sense to raise her foot and to set it at liberty. A lobster will, with inconceivable dexterity snap off his leg when one of his fellows seizes it with his claw: but if you put one of his legs between his own claw, he will not have the sense to open his claw and to remove his leg, but breaks it off, as if there were no other method of releasing himself. The ostrich hatches her eggs, as it would appear, for the purpose of having young ostriches; she nevertheless quits them for every trifle, and leaves them to perish; nay, she will even break most of them herself, for the purpose of feeding with them the young ones which she already has. This bird has, moreover, the silly instinct to swallow every thing that comes in its way, without discriminating, like other animals, whether it is hurtful to it or not. An ostrich swallowed, in Shaw's presence, several leaden bullets hot from the mould. It will greedily devour its own excrements and those of other birds, and of course manifests not the least choice in obeying the instinct of appetite. The crocodile would multiply with dangerous rapidity, were it not so stupid as to devour its own young, according to the testimony of Ulloa. Thus, too, the male tiger destroys its own species in its young; and it is observed of one of the bug family, that the female is obliged to use the greatest precaution to defend her eggs and her young from the male. The ascent and descent of larks are the result of an instinct implanted in those birds, which they follow without any consideration; for they do the very same over the sea as upon land, and hence frequently perish in the water. A thousand other examples of this kind might be adduced. They prove that these actions, which seem to manifest so much intelligence, are but the actions of a machine, adapted to certain particular purposes, and that to those purposes alone this apparent intelligence extends. What can be inferred from all this, but that in the complicated rela tions in which an animal becomes involved during the whole course of its life, cases must sometimes occur, in which the natural instinct, that is not guided by reason, but merely developed mechanically, operates very improperly and quite the contrary way to what it ought to do, or in which, at least, it fails of completely effecting the object of nature? Every thing in nature has its limits, its deficiencies, and its exceptions: how, then, should the instincts of animals alone be exempt from them? Traces of these deficiencies, and of this perverse application, are but too frequently met with in the animal kingdom. Though most animals follow a natural instinct in the selection of their food, and readily distinguish and reject such substances as are pernicious; still naturalists demonstrate, that they frequently choose the wrong and greedily eat poisonous vegetables which kill them. Many animals cannot distinguish food that has been most manifestly impregnated with poison, from any other though they immediately recognize those aliments which they need for their subsistence by much less perceptible signs. A horse, which is so dainty in his food, when left to himself cannot resist the inclination to drink when he is overheated, and this error costs him his life. He wounds himself with great stupidity when a sprig of thorn is fastened beneath his tail, by pressing it violently against his haunches; whereas he need but raise it to spare himself the pain. The extreme difficulty, also, of removing a horse from a stable which is on fire, is a well-known fact; and, in consequence of this obstinacy, he is consumed with it. In the rutting season, many animals exhaust themselves to such a degree that it is a long time before they recover their strength. In short, it must be admitted that, in many cases, the instincts of Nature precisely counteract their objects, and that nothing is farther from truth than that they are infallible. Man, who in one point of view is an animal, just as every animal is in one point of view a machine, has his appropriate animal appetites, as other animals have theirs. So little difference is there, in this respect, between him and the brutes, that on this side he can claim no superiority over them. For his preservation he has, in common with them all, hunger and thirst, the dread of pain, and concern for his life; he defends himself like them, and like them he propagates his kind. Moralists must testify the ill-success of their lessons, when they tend to bring the actions which men perform by means of their animal instincts under the control of prudence and reason. Such instincts, then, we have also in our diseases; and it is as clear as the sun that they are but consequences of the unusual sensations which we experience in a state of disease. The craving for drink in fever, the impulse to counteract putrefaction of the humours by acids, to alleviate pain by rubbing and chafing the contracted nerves, to perform all sorts of violent motions, &c. are but the effects of feelings according to which the machine changes, and, with its new excitements, aims, as it were, at new objects, of which the soul, however, neither comprehends nor knows any thing. Much as it behoves us to respect these instincts of the sick as the almost immediate impulses of Nature, still we should go too far were we to believe that these instincts, in the human animal at least, were infallible, and ought absolutely to be followed. Far from it!—our appetites, considered by themselves, have the same defects as those of all other animals; and as they are not, any more than the latter, effects of our reason, but mere operations of the animal machine, they are not to be more highly regarded in us than in the brutes. We should drink cold water, when overheated, with the same avidity as the horse, did not reflection or experience forbid us. The instinct of propagation impairs our constitutions much more than those of animals. Our urinary vessels hold a stone that is passing through them as firmly as the stupid lobster holds his leg in his claw; and, to afford relief, the physician must correct this perversion of the maxim, which is so applicable to an infinity of other cases, in order to save us from destruction. It is frequently the case, that, when the stomach is overcharged, we have the same appetite for food as if it were empty, and we should injure our health were we blindly to obey this impulse. Ebn Athir, an Arabian writer, relates, that the Caliph Abdalmelek was attacked by a disease which, according to the physicians, could not fail to prove mortal in case of his drinking any thing. His thirst, however, became so violent, that, unable to endure it any longer, he ordered his son Valid to give him some drink. Valid, who loved his father, would not gratify him in violation of the express prohibition of the physicians. The Caliph then applied to his daughter, Fatime, and Valid still opposed the fulfilment of his wish; when Abdalmelek became angry, and threatened to disinherit his son if he persisted in his disobedience. He was therefore obliged to comply; and no sooner had the Caliph swallowed the fatal draught of water, than he swooned, and shortly afterwards expired. If this example be liable to suspicion, still the natural antipathies in diseases are instincts of nature as well as the appetites; and yet persons in hydrophobia, who have such a horror of water, are tormented with thirst. In short, were it necessary, I could adduce a great number of facts to prove that the instincts of Nature, both in health and in disease, are frequently as fallible and as perverse as in the irrational animals. The animal instincts of man lose, moreover, much of their weight with physicians, because reason and sophistry interfere too much in this business of Nature, though it is above their comprehension. There is no end to our refinement upon our appetites, and this renders a matter already sufficiently ticklish and intricate, so uncertain, that the instances of men who have benefited themselves by obeying their animal instincts are very rare. It is almost impossible for us to leave these instincts, even if we would, in their natural purity; because, in all our animal actions, and in our very feelings, reason always interferes, and we cannot impose silence on the soul. Hence our patients often deem that an impulse of Nature, which is a mere suggestion of their reason or imagination; and even if they really feel such an impulse, their sophistry does not fail immediately to pervert it. This bungling of the soul in the labo ratory of Nature justly renders the animal instincts of man so problemati, cal to physicians, that they are always extremely cautious how they gratify them. Nor does it appear that we shall ever gain a much better insight into this matter than we have yet done; for the instincts of animals are a work out of the most secret cabinet of Nature, into which we never shall penetrate. It is, therefore, my duty to exhort my readers in the most serious manner, neither to give way too confidently to their natural instincts, nor entirely to oppose them. Each of their appetites is a dangerous temptation for them. Nature will not suffer us to keep them in absolute subjection; neither will she bear us harmless if we blindly give ourselves up to their control. Where, in this case, is the middle way? I cannot tell and if I could, of what benefit would it be? Middle ways are difficult to keep; they are ways upon which neither physicians nor patients are commonly found. THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP. WHAT hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells? We ask not such from thee. Yet more, the Depths have more!-What wealth untold Won from ten thousand royal Argosies. -Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main! Yet more, the Depths have more !-Thy waves have roll'd Above the cities of a world gone by! Sand hath fill'd up the palaces of old, Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry! Man yields them to decay! Yet more! the Billows and the Depths have more! -Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave— Give back the lost and lovely!-those for whom The place was kept at board and hearth so long; The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom, To thee the love of woman hath gone down, |