MOVEMENT, SENSE, AND INSTINCT.

WE

E now commence the subject of MIND proper, or the enumeration and explanation of the states and varieties of Feeling, the modes of Action, and the powers of Intelligence, comprised in the mental nature of man.

In the First Book, which is to comprehend the MOVEMENTS, SENSATIONS, APPETITES, and INSTINCTS, I propose to deal with what may be termed the inferior region of mind, the inferiority being marked by the absence, in any great degree, of Intellect and cultivation. This is the region wherein man may be most extensively compared with the brute creation, whose intelligence and education are comparatively small. When the powers of a superior intellect, and the example and acquirements of former generations, are superadded to the primitive Sensations and Instincts, there results a higher class of combinations, more difficult to analyze and describe, and belonging therefore more properly to a later stage of the exposition.

It will, however, be remarked as a novelty in the plan thus announced, that the Appetites and Instincts have been included in the same department as the Sensations. In the works of former writers on Mental Science, as, for example, Reid, Stewart, Brown, and Mill, those portions of our nature have been included among the general group of ACTIVE POWERS, including Desire, Habit, and the Will. My reasons for departing from the example of these eminent writers are the following. In the first place, the Appetites and Instincts are scarcely at all connected with the higher operations of intelligence, and therefore they do not require to be preceded by the exposition of the Intellect; everything necessary to be said respecting them may be given as soon as the Sensations

are discussed. In the second place, I hope to make it appear, that the illustration of the Intellectual processes will gain by the circumstance that Appetite and Instinct have been previously gone into. Thirdly, the connexion of Appetite with Sensation is of the closest kind. Fourthly, as regards Instinct, I conceive it to be proper to render an account of all that is primitive in our nature-all our untaught activities-before entering upon the process of acquisition as treated of under the Intellect. In addition to these reasons stated in advance, I trust to the impression produced by the effect of the arrangement itself, for the complete justification of my departure from the plan of my prede

cessors.

The division of the present Book will be into four chapters. The subject of Chapter first is ACTION and MOVEMENT considered as spontaneous, together with the Feelings and Perceptions resulting from muscular activity.

Chapter second comprehends the SENSES and SENSATIONS.
Chapter third treats of the APPETITES.

Chapter fourth includes the INSTINCTS, or the untaught Movements, and also the primitive rudiments of Emotion and of Volition. These last subjects are necessary in order to complete the plan of the present Book, which professes to exhaust all the primitive germs, whether of Action or Feeling, belonging to our nature, before proceeding to the consideration of intelligence and acquisition. In the complete system of the mind, the Intellect is thus placed midway between the instinctive and the cultivated emotions and activities, being itself the instrument for converting the one class into the other.