5. The Appetite that brings the Sexes together is founded on certain secretions which periodically accumulate within the system, producing a feeling of oppression until they are either discharged or absorbed, there being a certain intense pleasure in discharging them for the ends of reproduction. If we were to place these feelings among Sensations, they would either form a class apart, or they would fall under the first class above described, namely, the Sensations of Organic Life. If the subject were open to full discussion, like the other feelings of human nature, it might be best to treat them as the foundation of one of the Special Emotions expounded at large in a treatise on Emotion in general. We have in this case as in Hunger, both Appetite and Desire; but we have also, what does not occur to a like degree in the former mentioned craving, a many-sided susceptibility to inflammation,—through all the senses, through the trains of thought, and through emotions that are not sensations. The circumstances that concur in an individual of one sex to produce the excitement in the opposite sex, by sight, sound, or smell, as well as by touch, have not hitherto been fully investigated.

6. The accustomed routine of life leads to a craving almost of the nature of Appetite. As the time comes round for each stated occupation, there is a tendency or bent to proceed with that occupation, and an uneasiness at being restrained: the feeling being probably of the same character as that arising from confining the fresh and spontaneous energy of

the frame.

7. All the appetites are liable to be diseased and perverted, so as to give false indications as to what the system needs. They are likewise liable to artificial and unseasonable inflammation, through the presence of the things that stimulate and gratify them. In the lower animals, it is assumed, I know not with what truth, that appetite rarely errs; in humanity error is extremely common. We are apt to crave for warmth when coolness would be more wholesome; we crave for food and drink, far beyond the limits of sufficiency; we indulge in the excitement of action when we ought to cultivate rest, or

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luxuriate in repose to the point of debility. So false is the appetite for sleep that it is still a dispute how much the system requires. Perhaps the complicacy and conflicting impulses of the human frame are the cause of all this uncertainty and mistake, rendering it necessary for us to resort to experience and science, and a higher volition than appetite, for the guidance of our daily life.

1.

IN

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE INSTINCTS.

N the present chapter, I mean to consider the various primitive arrangements for action that may be traced as belonging to the human system. It is a part of the plan of this work to attempt to strip off the covering of acquired faculties, and ascertain what is the original mechanism that we start from in making our various acquisitions. This is to descend to the instinctive, intuitive, or primordial, in the human mind.

Instinct is defined by being opposed to acquisition, education, or experience. We might express it as the untaught ability to perform actions of all kinds, and more especially such as are necessary or useful to the animal. In it a living being possesses, at the moment of birth, powers of acting of the same nature as those subsequently conferred by experience and education. When a newly dropped calf stands up, walks, and sucks the udder of the cow, we call the actions instinctive.

2. In all the three regions of mind,-Emotion, Volition, and Intellect, there is of necessity a certain primordial structure, the foundation of all that a human being ever becomes. There are also certain arrangements not included in the sphere of consciousness, or mind proper, that yet form links in our mental actions; as, for example, the reflex movements already noticed. In order to exhaust the various primitive arrangements, both unconscious or involuntary, and conscious or voluntary, I shall proceed in the following order:

1. The Reflex Actions.-These are not proper mental elements, but their discussion is of value, both because they illustrate mind by contrast, and because certain useful func

tions are served by them, such as would otherwise have to be provided for by volition, or true mental activity.

II. The primitive arrangements for combined and harmonious actions. These have already been glanced at in the description of the functions of the cerebellum. The use of the locomotive members,-in walking, flying, swimming, &c., is the most prominent instance. These arrangements, if not mental in the strict sense, are at least auxiliary to the voluntary operations.

III. The instinctive play of Emotion, or the primitive mechanism provided for the outburst and manifestation of feeling. Here I shall have to assume the law of diffusion, already hinted at, respecting Emotion or consciousness; the verification of this law will not be entered upon in the present chapter.

IV. The instinctive germ of Volition. That activity, which we call the power of the will, has to be traced back, if possible, to some inborn or primitive stimulus, connecting together our feelings and our actions, and enabling the one to control the other. This is perhaps the most interesting inquiry that our science presents.

The primitive foundations of Intellect, I shall defer till the whole subject is entered on in the next Book.

V. The description of the special mechanism of the Voice will receive a place at the conclusion of this chapter. This is a subject not to be omitted in a treatise on the Human Mind, and I did not think proper to append it to the chapter on Action and Movement in general.

OF THE REFLEX ACTIONS.

3. In discussing the functions of the Spinal cord and Medulla Oblongata, I enumerated the actions termed automatic or reflex, see p. 47. They are, 1st, those connected with Digestion, namely, Deglutition, and the propulsion of the food through the alimentary canal. 2nd, Those connected with Respiration, including the movements of the lungs in Breathing, Coughing, Sneezing. 3rd, The winking of the

Eyes. 4th, The permanent contraction of the Muscles. Of these some are wholly free from the participation of consciousness, as Breathing, Alimentary Movements, and Muscular Tone. The winking of the eyes is also independent of consciousness, to this extent, that it operates whether we feel it or not, but the action ceases in sleep. Coughing and sneezing are essentially conscious, but they are also involuntary; that is, the mechanical irritation works the riddance of itself by a reflex act. If a voluntary effort were needed in the case of coughing, that effort would probably be made, in answer to the painful feeling produced by the substance in contact with the surface of the bronchia. In sneezing, the feeling is not always painful, but may be simply pungent, as in taking snuff or applying the nose to smelling salts. But although these actions are usually accompanied with feeling, they may be stimulated when we are in an unconscious state. The act of coughing will come over a person in sleep from the accumulation of phlegm. So, by applying snuff to the nose of a sleeper, the sneezing action will be brought on, and will precede and cause his awakening. These remarks on the partly unconscious and partly conscious character of the automatic actions are necessary to clear up the distinction between the actions that are properly mental or voluntary, and those that are not.

4. There is a certain amount of reflex action generated in the operation of the various senses. A stimulus of any one of the organs of sense, besides rendering us conscious, and wakening up the movements constituting the expression of feeling, seems to excite a peculiar responsive action in the member where the organ is placed, or where the stimulus is applied. Thus an object placed in the hand not only gives a feeling or sensation of touch, together with the attitudes and expressions proper to that feeling, but also directs a special response towards the muscles that move the fingers. There is a reflex tendency to close the hand upon anything placed on the palm, as may be seen by trying the experiment upon a child before its voluntary movements are developed, and still more strikingly if the child is asleep. If the finger is pricked or scalded, there is a keen emotion felt and a lively