A Strange Story — Volume 07Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
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A Strange Story — Volume 07
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
[1] "Are intelligence and instinct, thus differing in their relative
proportion in man as compared with all other animals, yet the same in kind
and manner of operation in both? To this question we must give at once an
affirmative answer. The expression of Cuvier, regarding the faculty of
reasoning in lower animals, 'Leur intelligence execute des operations du
meme genre,' is true in its full sense. We can in no manner define reason
so as to exclude acts which are at every moment present to our
observation, and which we find in many instances to contravene the natural
instincts of the species. The demeanour and acts of the dog in reference
to his master, or the various uses to which he is put by man, are as
strictly logical as those we witness in the ordinary transactions of
life."--Sir Henry Holland, chapters on "Mental Physiology," p. 220.
The whole of the chapter on Instincts and Habits in this work should be
read in connection with the passage just quoted. The work itself, at once
cautious and suggestive, is not one of the least obligations which
philosophy and religion alike owe to the lucubrations of English medical
men.
[2] Abercrombie's Intellectual Powers, p. 26. (15th Edition.)
[3] OEuvres de Descartes, vol. x. p. 178, et seq. (Cousin's Edition.)
[4] M. Tissot the distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Dijon, in his
recent work, "La Vie dans l'Homme," p. 255, gives a long and illustrious
list of philosophers who assign a rational soul (ame) to the inferior
animals, though he truly adds, "that they have not always the courage of
their opinion."
[5] Some idea of the extent of research and imagination bestowed on this
subject may be gleaned from the sprightly work of Pierquin de Gemblouz,
"Idiomologie des Animaux," published at Paris, 1844.
[6] "Faculty is active power: capacity is passive power."--Sir W.
Hamilton: Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, vol. i. p.178.
[7] Sir W. Hamilton's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 10.
[8] Chalmers, "Bridgewater Treatise," vol. ii. pp. 28, 30. Perhaps I
should observe, that here and elsewhere in the dialogues between Faber and
Fenwick, it has generally been thought better to substitute the words of
the author quoted for the mere outline or purport of the quotation which
memory afforded to the interlocutor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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