Here the word is evidently employed (instead of _restless_[1]) figuratively for _impatient_; although I am not aware that a "bumptious" person might defend the word actually used, in the sense that the listener _refused to go along further_ with the speaker. Still I think _restlessness_ was the idea intended to be conveyed in the above passage, and that "impatient" would have been the better word, considering that it follows "he _felt_." J. R. Brompton. [Footnote 1: Or instead of "fidgetty," as one would likely have expressed it in familiar conversation.] * * * * * REASON AND UNDERSTANDING ACCORDING TO COLERIDGE. There is a remarkable discrepancy in the statements of Coleridge respecting reason and understanding. (1.) _Friend_, vol. i. pp. 207-8. (Pickering.)-- "That many animals possess a share of understanding perfectly distinguishable from mere instinct we all allow. Few persons have a favourite dog, without making instances of its intelligence an occasional topic of conversation. They call for our admiration of the individual animal, and not with exclusive reference to the wisdom in nature, as in the case of [Greek: storgê], or maternal instinct: or of the hexangular cells of the bees.... We hear little or nothing of the instincts of the 'half-reasoning elephant,' and as little of the understanding of caterpillars and butterflies." _Aids to Reflection_, vol. i. pp 171-3. (Pickering.) Here, after quoting two instances from Hüber about bees and ants, he says,-- "Now I assert that the faculty in the acts here narrated does not differ _in kind_ from understanding." Does Coleridge mean to tell us that bees and ants have the same faculty (understanding) as dogs and elephants? {536} (2.) _Friend_, vol. i. pp. 216-7.-- "For a moment's steady self-reflection will show us that, in the simple determination 'black is not white,' or 'that two straight lines cannot include a space,' all the powers are implied that distinguish man from animals; first, the power of reflection; second, of comparison; third, and therefore suspension of the mind; fourth, therefore of a controlling will, and the power of acting from notions, instead of mere images exciting appetites; from motives, and not from mere dark instinct." And after relating a story about a dog who appeared to have employed the disjunctive syllogism (in relation to which see Cottle's _Reminiscences_, vol. i. pp. 48-9.), Coleridge remarks,-- "So awful and almost miraculous does the simple act of concluding 'take three from four, and there remains one,' appear to us, when attributed to one of the most sagacious of all brute animals." _Aids to Reflection_, vol. i. p. 175.--