Intellect is not found to exist only in connection with a corresponding
physical organization. In the family of man, if that which may appear a
good organization is accompanied by an inferior intellect, we may
suspect our nice accuracy of discernment, rather than a discrepancy in
the operation of the general law; so also where we may seem to perceive
a good intellect, but which produces inferior or unworthy results. We do
not always notice the small steps of degeneration. Often the first
notice we take is of the fact of a changed condition, as proved by the
results: “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
The idea that intellect and mental development can be independent of
physical organization is an absurdity. A suppressed or incomplete
organization must arrest a further enlargement of the mental faculties.
These faculties may be improved, brought into action, or even their
action to some extent suppressed, by government and culture. Such indeed
are the guides to progressive improvement. EXPLANATION:—_Man has no
organization by which he could build a honey-comb like a bee._ Will any
culture applied to him teach him? _Man has no organization by which he
can closely examine spiritual existences_: his ideas about them are
therefore variant and confused. Who will arrange their study into a
science? _Man has no organization by which he can fully comprehend God._
Will he ever do so in his present state?
Are, then, the actions of the child, and of those persons whose mental
development has been arrested at a very early stage, (as has been
supposed the case with the lower orders of animals, and of those animals
themselves,) the result of some faculty or mental power different from
mind? The result of instinct? And what is instinct but mind in the early
dawn of its development? Are not such actions as the chick breaking its
shell, the young-born infant receiving its natural food, the necessary
consequents of the state of their infantile organization, which the
earliest development of mind could prompt and enable them to put forth;
and will it be deemed beyond the reach of reason, to prove that with the
difference of maturity in organization and development, the same general
connection of mind and organization is found, through the entire of life
as well as infancy?
Philosophers have, with indefatigable labour, endeavoured to enlighten
the world on the subject of instinct. Can we be pardoned if we suggest
that their theories on this subject signally prove they were but men?
Des Cartes says—“Brutes are machines without sensation or ideas; that
their actions are the result of external force, as the sound of an organ
is the result of the air being forced through the pipes.” This is his
“instinct.” If this be true, then it follows that every action in the
material world is instinct. Then the thunder utters its voice, the earth
quakes, and the telegraph works by “instinct.” Yet, his theory has found
an advocate in that very classical Latin poem, “Anti Lucretius,” by
Cardinal Polignac.
Dr. Reid sustains the mechanical nature of brutes, but classifies their
actions into those of habit and those of instinct.
Dr. Darwin says that instinct is mental, and that the actions of brutes
result from faculties, the same in nature as those of man, but extremely
limited. Smellie takes the same view. Yet Darwin asserts that instinct
is the reason; and Smellie, that reason is the result of instinct.
Cudworth says that instinct is an intermediate power, taking rank
between mind and matter, yet often vibrating from one to the other.
Buffon contends that brutes possess an _intellectual principle_, by
which they distinguish between pleasure and pain, and desire the one and
repel the other. This is his _instinct_.
Reimar divides _instinct_ into three classes: _mechanical_, such as the
pulsation of the heart; _representative_, such as result from an
imperfect kind of memory, and, so far as it is memory, in common with
mankind; and _spontaneous_, the same as Buffon’s. Cuvier says that
instinct consists of ideas that do not result from _sensation_, but flow
directly from the brain! Dupont says that there is no such distinct
faculty as instinct. His views are analogous to Darwin and Smellie.
Pope, Stahl, and others say, “It is the divinity that stirs within us.”
“And reason raise o’er instinct as you can,
In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man.”
Cullen, Hoffman, and others say that _instinct_ is the “vis medicatrix
naturæ.” Dr. John Mason Good says that “_instinct is the law of the
living principle_,” that “_instinctive actions are the actions of the
living principle_.” If so, instinct is as applicable to vegetables as to
animals.
Dr. Hancock, in his work on the Physical and Moral Relations of
Instinct, has evidently enlarged on the doctrine of Pope and Stahl. He
says instinct is the “_impulse_,” “_the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit_;” and, in his own words, “_which we can only regard as an
emanation of Divine wisdom_.”
He asserts that the lower we descend in the scale of animal organization
and mental development, the more active and all-pervading over the
conduct of the animal is instinct! But, nevertheless, holds that
“_instinct_ is in such animals an _unconscious intelligence_.” We much
admire why he did not think proper to cast off from the ancients the
charge of a _puerile idolatry_, on the account of their worship of
_bulls_, _calves_, _alligators_, _snakes_, _beetles_, and _bugs_, for
they must have entertained a somewhat similar notion. But the doctor
goes further, and says, that as the lower grades of the animal world
have this _quality_, in which “the Divine energy seems to act with most
unimpeded power,” so the holiest of men has it also, but consciously and
willingly, and it then becomes his ruling principle, “Divine counsellor,
his never-failing help, a light to his feet, and a lantern to his path.”
(Page 513.) It is quite evident that the doctor’s instinct is the same
with the “unerring conscience,” “the innate principle of light,” “the
moral sense,” “the spiritual power,” “the Divine reason,” “the internal
teaching,” “the perfect light of nature,” and “the Divine afflatus” of
the theologico-abolition speakers and writers of the present day, which,
they say, is the gift of God to every man. This strange error of some of
these writers we have already had occasion to notice. But it is to be
regretted, for the good credit of _religious profession_, that they did
not acknowledge from whom they borrowed the idea; or, will they at this
late day, excuse themselves, and frankly acknowledge they took it, not
from Dr. Hancock, or any other modern, but as a deduction from the
practices of ancient idolatry?
Since we have ventured an opinion on the subject of instinct, we trust
forgiveness for the introduction of that of others.
Our desire is to present such considerations as lead to the conclusion
that men are born into the world with different physical and mental
aptitudes: in short, that their corporeal and intellectual organizations
are not of equal power; or, if some prefer the term, that their
_instincts_ are not of equal extent and activity.
For substantially, upon a contrary hypothesis, are founded all those
beautiful arguments in favour of the entire equality of man. Some whole
systems of political justice are founded upon the proposition that there
is no innate principle; and one class of philosophers argue that, as
there is no innate principle, therefore all men are ushered into the
world under the circumstance of perfect equality; consequently, all the
inequality afterwards found is the result of usurpation and injustice.
Do they forget that organization itself is innate, and that different
organizations must direct the way through different paths? But these
philosophers still persist that there is no such disparity among the
human race whereby the inferiority of one man shall necessarily place
him in subjection to another. This doctrine is perhaps confuted by
practice better than by argument. Counsellor Quibble saw his client
Stultus in the stocks, on which he cries out, “It is contrary to law.
The court has no such power. They cannot do it.” Nevertheless, Stultus
is still in the stocks! But what would it avail, even if all men were
born equals? Could they all stand in the same footsteps, do the same
things, think the same thoughts, and be resolved into a unit? Who does
not perceive the contrary?—but that from their birth they must stand in
different footsteps, walk in different paths, think different things,
and, in the journey of life, arrive at different degrees of wealth,
honour, knowledge, and power?
Men organized into some form of government cannot be equal; because the
very thing, government, proves the contrary: among perfect equals,
government is an impossibility. If laws were prescribed, they could
never be executed until some of these equals shall have greater power
than those who infringe them. Man is never found so holy as to punish
himself for his own impulses. Thus the idea of government among equals
is a silly fiction.
Men without government cannot be equal, because the _strong_ will have
power over the _weak_.
The inequality of men is the progenitor of all civil compact. One man is
strong, another weak; one wise, another foolish: one virtuous, another
vicious: each one yielding himself to a place in the compact, all
acquire additional protection, especially so long as all shall adhere to
the terms of the compact. But the compact itself is the result of the
proposition that the majority shall have more power than the minority,
because they are supposed to have more animal force, and that they hold
the evidence of a more lofty mental development. Here has sprung forth
the doctrine that _the good of the greater part is the good of the
whole_: hence, under this system, an opposing fraction is often
sacrificed to the ruling power. We must here remark that this doctrine
was changed at an early day into, “The good of the ruling power is the
good of the whole.”
Although not a part of our study, we may turn aside here to remark that,
from this _monad_ in the composition of the doctrines of government, did
emanate the idea of all those strange sacrifices that now deform the
pages of ancient idolatry. In its aid the idol divinity vouched its
influence, and the daughter of Ham yielded her new-born to the flaming
embraces of her god. Even now the ancient sources of the Ganges still
pour down their holy waters, are still drinking in an excessive
population from the arms of the Hindoo mother. Nor is this idea only an
ancient thought; it is not half a century since it was broached in one
of the European parliaments to so hedge around the institution of
marriage with thorny impediments, that none excessively poor could
legally propagate. But to our minds these things strangely show forth
the facts that prove “men are not equal.”
But even the lowest grades yield their obedience, and are protected from
greater evils. Even though they may have been so low as to have not been
able to take any part in the formation of the compact, yet they are as
certainly benefited as the most elevated.
Such has been the condition of the race through all time, while
falsehood has often mingled in her ingredients, adding misery to the
degradation of man;—for it is truly observable that falsehood has for
ever led to deeper degradation, to an increased departure from the laws
of civil rule. So far as human intellect has threaded its way along the
path of truth and through the mazes of human depravity, so far has man
improved his condition by increasing his knowledge and power,—while a
reversed condition has ever attended a retrograde movement. May not the
conclusion then be had, such is the ordinance of God! But equality among
men is a chimera, not possible to be reduced to practice, nor desirable
if it could be. They never were so, nor was it intended they ever should
be. Cain and Abel were not equal: God told Cain that if he behaved well,
he should have rule over Abel; but if he did not, he should suffer the
consequences of sin. “Who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the
thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one
vessel to honour and another to dishonour?” _Rom._ ix. 20, 21. “Who hath
made thee to differ one from another?” 1 _Cor._ iv. 7. “And the Lord
said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb; and two manner of people
shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger
than the other people, and the older shall _serve_ (יַֽעֲבֹ֥ד _ya avod_,
_be a slave to_) the younger.” _Gen._ xxv. 23. See also _Rom._ ix. 12.
Can the inequality of man be more strongly inculcated? And St. Paul
seems to suggest that such inequality will exist hereafter. “There is
one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of
the stars; for as one star differeth from another star in glory, so also
is the resurrection of the dead.” 1 _Cor._ xv. 41, 42.
The idea that the souls of men are unequal in a future state of
existence seems to be consonant with the faith of most of the Christian
churches. “And his lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful
servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee
ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. For unto
every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but
from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that he hath; and cast
ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.” _Matt._ xxv. 21, 29, 30.
Some politicians say, government is founded on opinion. Be it so; yet
opinion is predicated upon the very incidents of men’s conduct, which,
when analyzed, are found to prove their inequality. So also, when, by
the aid of the compact formed, one individual holds a part of the
community in subjection, such extended rule is dependent on the same
principles as the elementary case. The truth is, human society never
recedes far from elementary influences, notwithstanding all the
artificials in government that ever have or ever can be brought into
use. The conditions to govern and to be in subjection necessarily imply
superiority and inferiority: change these relative qualities, and the
condition of the parties is changed also. But, upon the organization of
society, in all countries and at all times, we find inequality in the
conditions of men, growing out of their social state; distinctions
between them, affecting their personal considerations, and often
disposing of them for life. Thus, in one country a man is born a
monarch, in another a priest of the Lord, a prince, a peer, a noble, a
commoner, a freeman, a serf, a slave. This arrangement of the conditions
of social and civil life, from long habit, may well be said to become
constitutional, and necessary to the happiness of that society, although
thereby one may seem forced to be a tinker and another a tailor. Hence
we infer, inequality among men is the necessary result of the rules of
civil life.
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