upon the problem, has nevertheless devoted a large section of his Pensées to the Greatness and Misery of Man.'

It is impossible to do more than touch in the most passing manner upon the views held by ancient philosophers; but I should like to quote two short passages, put by Plato into the mouth of Socrates, as indicating the high view which it was possible for a philosopher more than two thousand years ago to take of the moral obligations and the future destiny of man.

The first quotation is from the Apology:

I thought, says Socrates, that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my defence, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. . . . The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

...

The other quotation represents some of the last words of Socrates, before taking the poison:

I would not have [you] sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to the grave, or bury him; for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer then, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that as is usual and as you think best."

I am disposed to think that language of this kind to which a deeply thinking man has been led by the contemplation of his own being, and by the effort to bring his practical conduct into harmony with that which he believes to be right and true, is more valuable than any words which he may utter when indulging in dry speculation upon human nature. The philosopher is most likely to be a successful student of man when he feels that he is a man himself. Pope tells us that

The proper study of mankind is man,

which in a certain sense is true; but it is equally true that the proper student of mankind is man, for man's nature cannot be put under a microscope, or measured by mathematical rules, or submitted. to chemical tests; it is too subtle for any analysis such as these; it can only be thoroughly examined when a man studies his own conduct and character, and satisfies himself that he is something which no other creature of God is, that he has powers which no other creature has, and that therefore he is somehow different not merely in degree but in kind from all other creatures which the earth contains. Consciously or unconsciously the question What is man?' has been one of those which have exercised human thought in almost all periods; and undoubtedly one great help in answering the question is to be sought in the conclusions of the thoughtful and the good: the conclusions of heathen philosophers are not even now to be 2 Jowett's Translation, vol. i. p. 353. 3 Phado, vol. i. p. 466. VOL. X.-No. 53. L

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despised: they have their value, nay in a certain sense they are more precious than those reached by men who have had the privilege of Christian teaching, because they show the results to which the human mind comes by its own pure unaided efforts. In fact it is difficult to say, since the atmosphere of human thought has been so thoroughly impregnated with Christian doctrine, how much of current opinion belongs to man and how much to divine revelation: but it is remarkable that the most recent effort to substitute another religion for the old faith of the Church depends upon exalted though fanciful views of the nature of man. In the religion of humanity for the idea of God is substituted that of the human race: the human race is immortal, all-powerful, all-worthy; the thought of advancing and benefiting the race is the one sufficient spring of high and noble action, and the thought of the perpetuity of the race takes the place of the belief of personal life in the world to come. A strange religion, no doubt: one of which it is not difficult to prophesy that it will never be very widely spread, and will never take deep root, but interesting so far as my present subject is concerned, inasmuch as it indicates a deep-lying conviction and a powerful testimony in favour of the dignity of man's place in nature.

But we may leave philosophical speculations and philosophical religions, and come down to the region of the common sense of mankind. This common sense tells us, not merely that man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave,' but that he stands absolutely by himself in creation. His superiority is not of the same kind as that which a dog might claim over a lobster, or an eagle over a beetle, or a fish over a worm. The difference is of a kind which a naturalist simply cannot measure; it depends upon moral characteristics, involves considerations of feelings and affections, deals with conscience and the sense of right, recognises the power of an independent will, cannot limit itself to the life which now is, but stretches out into the future and only attains its complete development on the other side of the tomb. I do not say that some or all of these points of difference may not be contested, and are not contested by some amongst us; but I think I am not wrong in saying that the general sentiment or opinion, or, as I have called it, the common sense of mankind, is a testimony, whatever it may be worth, on the side of those who would assign to man an indefinite superiority above other creatures, that kind of superiority which is asserted by the transcendent phrase, created in the image of God.'

Hence it might seem to be waste of time, especially in this late period of the world's history, to discuss in any way man's place in creation. But views have been advanced in our own time by scientific men, and coming from them have necessarily considerable

Sir Thomas Browne.

weight, which tend very much, and perhaps it may be said very painfully, to degrade the view which men in general, to say nothing of poets and philosophers, have been in the habit of holding concerning man. Suppose we are told, for example, that all life comes from a slime which has been spontaneously generated, that from this slime come the simplest forms of living things, and that from these simplest forms are developed more complicated forms, from which are preserved and further developed those which in the struggle for existence prove themselves fittest to survive, and that this process, combined it may be with some subsidiary hypothesis, is sufficient, without any supposition of purpose, any action of a creative will, any master mind, to account for all that exists, including mandoes not this kind of anthropogony (in giving which I believe I am literally representing and not caricaturing the views of Ernst Haeckel, as expounded in his History of Creation) tend to make us at least rather uncomfortable, as though we were threatened with losing our birthright? I am not denying the truth of some doctrine of evolution, or development; I have no more difficulty in believing on good evidence that the human race was brought to perfection by evolution than I have in believing that a bird was once an egg, or an oak once an acorn; but I find an almost impossibility in believing that there was no purpose in this evolution and no mind directing it and producing the result. I deem this view of the origin of man to be utterly untenable, but I am not going to attempt to deal with it specifically; I only refer to it as giving a reason why I regard man's place in nature as a subject worthy of consideration by thinking persons in this nineteenth century."

Regarding then what has been said hitherto as introductory, I now come to the substance of my paper, and I propose to set out a few thoughts which have occurred to me concerning the specific, or if not all of them specific at least some of the most remarkable, differences between man and the other animals which occupy the surface of our globe. The first difference which I shall notice is that well-known one which depends upon the distinction between instinct and reason. The term instinct is perhaps not easy to define accurately; in the first dictionary upon which I lay my hand I find it described as a natural impulse to certain actions which an

Supposing the first place in nature assigned to man, as no doubt would be the case whatever judge or jury might be appointed to try the case, it is a curious subject of speculation what creature should have the second place. The monkey might claim it on the ground of corporal resemblance and of some of his habits; the dog might allege that he was man's dearest companion, knew his ways and tastes best, and was most in sympathy with him; the half-reasoning elephant' could not be summarily passed over and with regard to social arrangements and domestic life probably the ant would put in a claim to be heard. I confess that, while the first place can be decided without doubt, the second appears to me to be absolutely incapable of being awarded.

animal performs without deliberation, without having any end in view, and frequently without knowing what it does.' A not altogether satisfactory definition, as it assumes something concerning the animal which it would be hard to prove. Here is a more recent definition. Instinct is action taken in pursuance of an end, but without conscious perception of what that end is.' This again

does not quite satisfy me, as it assumes a want of perception which it might be difficult to demonstrate. Is not instinct rather that which leads to an action having some end, but not dictated by the teaching either of any other creature or of experience? It is the doing something intelligent without having been in any way taught to do it, which constitutes the peculiarity and the marvel of instinct; and it may be said in general that reason belongs to man, and instinct to other animals; while yet it must not be asserted that the animal has a monopoly of instinct, or the man of reason.

When, however, we come to examine the proportion in which instinct and reason are divided between man and other animals, we shall find that the monopoly, though not complete, is, as far as instinct is concerned, very nearly so. Infants suck by instinct, and when we have said this we have gone a long way towards exhausting the obligations under which human creatures are laid by this part of their nature. I do not say that there are not other actions, even in adults, as, for example, the shutting of the eyes suddenly under the influence of a sudden danger, which may perhaps be properly called instinctive; but when all has been put together which can fairly be attributed to instinct in man, it really amounts to the merest trifle in the conduct of his life. Just compare it, for example, with what takes place in the case of insects. I pass over the familiar cases of bees, wasps, ants, and spiders, and will mention what is done by the stag-beetle. The larva of the stag-beetle has to make for itself a hole in which it can become a chrysalis. The female larva digs a hole of exactly her own size; but the male makes one as long again as himself, because when he becomes a beetle he will have horns as long as his body, which the female will not; but how could he know this?

It would be very easy to fill a volume with wonderful examples of instinct, though it would be difficult to surpass that which I have just given; and it is manifest that any examples of instinct in man, even though the domain of instinct be wider than I have represented it, are absolutely trivial when compared with the almost miraculous doings of instinct in the lower regions of animal life. But when we look at the other attribute which I have coupled with instinct, and which I have called reason, the tables are exactly turned. Here we find in the animal the merest glimmering, and in man something which amounts to almost unlimited power. It was the habit at one

Von Hartmann, quoted from Butler's Unconscious Memory. I have substituted end for purpose.

time to deny reason to the lower animals altogether; but I think that this is going too far; hundreds of dog stories seem to assert reasoning power for dogs beyond all doubt. I should be disposed to grant it without hesitation to horses, cats, elephants, foxes, in fact to all the higher animals. Can any one deny it to birds, who reads the story of the war between the herons and rocks at Dallam Tower, and of the permanent peace established upon the basis of a division of territory? In fact, the difficulty seems to me to be that of knowing where reason ends, rather than that of coming to the conclusion that it certainly exists. But after all, to what does the highest effort of reason amount in the case of any creature except man? A dog can never really advance in the scale; he may be domesticated, but he cannot be civilised; he can wag his tail if he is pleased, but he can never say Thank you!' and those herons and rooks at Dallam Tower have been contented with that one great feat of war and diplomacy, and have exhibited no special signs of intelligence since the treaty was signed. In fact, the meaning of reason, when applied to man, is so different from that which the word bears when applied to birds and beasts, that it seems almost a difference in kind. With the beasts it means doing something unlike their ordinary doings, and suggesting the thought of likeness to that which is human; with man it means just that which makes him man; it is his ordinary stock in trade; it is that which guides and governs his daily and hourly life; it is that which finds its natural outcome in language and literature and science and philosophy. Without reason man would not be man. The least gifted man, if he be not an idiot of the lowest type, has something which the most sagacious animal has not; and the most gifted man -what has he? What can measure the mental gifts of a Newton or a Shakespeare?

Nearly connected with the question of instinct and reason is that

'This story, which may be found in Bewick's History of British Birds, has been lately told more fully in a pamphlet entitled Observations on the Heron and the Heronry at Dallam Tower, Westmoreland, by the late Thomas Gough, of Winbarrow. (Kendal: 1880.)

'There were two groves at Dallam Tower, one of which for many years had been resorted to by a number of herons, which there built and bred; the other was one of the largest rookeries in the country. The two tribes lived for a long time without any disputes. At length the trees occupied by the herons, consisting of some very fine old oaks, were cut down in the spring of 1775, and the young brood perished by the fall of the timber. The parents immediately selected new habitations; but as the trees in their old locality were only of late growth, and not sufficiently high to secure the nests from boys, the herons attempted a new settlement in the rookery. They met with an obstinate resistance from the rooks, many of which, as well as some of their antagonists, lost their lives. The herons at last succeeded, built their nests, and brought out their young. But this was only a truce. The war was renewed in the following spring, and the herons were again the conquerors. Since that time peace seems to have been agreed upon between them; the rooks have relinquished possession of that part of the grove which the herons occupy; the herons confine themselves to those trees they first seized upon, and the two species live together in as much harmony as they did before the quarrel.'