MY JOURNEY CONTINUES.--INSTINCT.
It is unnecessary for me to give the details of the first part of my
long journey. My companion was guided by a perceptive faculty that, like
the compass, enabled him to keep in the proper course. He did not
question those whom we met, and made no endeavor to maintain a given
direction; and yet he was traveling in a part of the country that was
new to himself. I marveled at the accuracy of his intuitive perception,
for he seemed never to be at fault. When the road forked, he turned to
the right or the left in a perfectly careless manner, but the continuity
of his course was never interrupted. I began mentally to question
whether he could be guiding us aright, forgetting that he was reading my
thoughts, and he answered: "There is nothing strange in this
self-directive faculty. Is not man capable of following where animals
lead? One of the objects of my special study has been to ascertain the
nature of the instinct-power of animals, the sagacity of brutes. The
carrier pigeon will fly to its cote across hundreds of miles of strange
country. The young pig will often return to its pen by a route unknown
to it; the sluggish tortoise will find its home without a guide, without
seeing a familiar object; cats, horses and other animals possess this
power, which is not an unexplainable instinct, but a natural sense
better developed in some of the lower creatures than it is in man. The
power lies dormant in man, but exists, nevertheless. If we develop one
faculty we lose acuteness in some other power. Men have lost in mental
development in this particular direction while seeking to gain in
others. If there were no record of the fact that light brings objects to
the recognition of the mind through the agency of the eye, the sense of
sight in an animal would be considered by men devoid of it as
adaptability to extraordinary circumstances, or instinct. So it is that
animals often see clearly where to the sense of man there is only
darkness; such sight is not irresponsive action without consciousness
of a purpose. Man is not very magnanimous. Instead of giving credit to
the lower animals for superior perception in many directions, he denies
to them the conscious possession of powers imperfectly developed in
mankind. We egotistically aim to raise ourselves, and do so in our own
estimation by clothing the actions of the lower animals in a garment of
irresponsibility. Because we can not understand the inwardness of their
power, we assert that they act by the influence of instinct. The term
instinct, as I would define it, is an expression applied by men to a
series of senses which man possesses, but has not developed. The word is
used by man to characterize the mental superiority of other animals in
certain directions where his own senses are defective. Instead of
crediting animals with these, to them, invaluable faculties, man
conceitedly says they are involuntary actions. Ignorant of their mental
status, man is too arrogant to admit that lower animals are superior to
him in any way. But we are not consistent. Is it not true that in the
direction in which you question my power, some men by cultivation often
become expert beyond their fellows? and such men have also given very
little systematic study to subjects connected with these undeniable
mental qualities. The hunter will hold his course in utter darkness,
passing inequalities in the ground, and avoiding obstructions he can not
see. The fact of his superiority in this way, over others, is not
questioned, although he can not explain his methods nor understand how
he operates. His quickened sense is often as much entitled to be called
instinct as is the divining power of the carrier pigeon. If scholars
would cease to devote their entire energies to the development of the
material, artistic, or scientific part of modern civilization, and turn
their attention to other forms of mental culture, many beauties and
powers of Nature now unknown would be revealed. However, this can not
be, for under existing conditions, the strife for food and warmth is the
most important struggle that engages mankind, and controls our actions.
In a time that is surely to come, however, when the knowledge of all men
is united into a comprehensive whole, the book of life, illuminated
thereby, will contain many beautiful pages that may be easily read, but
which are now not suspected to exist. The power of the magnet is not
uniform--engineers know that the needle of the compass inexplicably
deviates from time to time as a line is run over the earth's surface,
but they also know that aberrations of the needle finally correct
themselves. The temporary variations of a few degrees that occur in the
running of a compass line are usually overcome after a time, and without
a change of course, the disturbed needle swerves back, and again points
to the calculated direction, as is shown by the vernier. Should I err in
my course, it would be by a trifle only, and we could not go far astray
before I would unconsciously discover the true path. I carry my magnet
in my mind."
Many such dissertations or explanations concerning related questions
were subsequently made in what I then considered a very impressive,
though always unsatisfactory, manner. I recall those episodes now, after
other more remarkable experiences which are yet to be related, and
record them briefly with little wonderment, because I have gone through
adventures which demonstrate that there is nothing improbable in the
statements, and I will not consume time with further details of this
part of my journey.
We leisurely traversed State after State, crossed rivers, mountains and
seemingly interminable forests. The ultimate object of our travels, a
location in Kentucky, I afterward learned, led my companion to guide me
by a roundabout course to Wheeling, Virginia, by the usual mountain
roads of that day, instead of going, as he might perhaps have much more
easily done, via Buffalo and the Lake Shore to Northern Ohio, and then
southerly across the country. He said in explanation, that the time lost
at the beginning of our journey by this route, was more than recompensed
by the ease of the subsequent Ohio River trip. Upon reaching Wheeling,
he disposed of the team, and we embarked on a keel boat, and journeyed
down the Ohio to Cincinnati. The river was falling when we started, and
became very low before Cincinnati was reached, too low for steamers, and
our trip in that flat-bottomed boat, on the sluggish current of the
tortuous stream, proved tedious and slow. Arriving at Cincinnati, my
guide decided to wait for a rise in the river, designing then to
complete our journey on a steamboat. I spent several days in Cincinnati
quite pleasantly, expecting to continue our course on the steamer
"Tecumseh," then in port, and ready for departure. At the last moment my
guide changed his mind, and instead of embarking on that boat, we took
passage on the steamer "George Washington," leaving Shipping-Port
Wednesday, December 13, 1826.
During that entire journey, from the commencement to our final
destination, my guide paid all the bills, and did not want either for
money or attention from the people with whom we came in contact. He
seemed everywhere a stranger, and yet was possessed of a talisman that
opened every door to which he applied, and which gave us unlimited
accommodations wherever he asked them. When the boat landed at
Smithland, Kentucky, a village on the bank of the Ohio, just above
Paducah, we disembarked, and my guide then for the first time seemed
mentally disturbed.
"Our journey together is nearly over," he said; "in a few days my
responsibility for you will cease. Nerve yourself for the future, and
bear its trials and its pleasures manfully. I may never see you again,
but as you are even now conspicuous in our history, and will be closely
connected with the development of the plan in which I am also
interested, although I am destined to take a different part, I shall
probably hear of you again."