‘According to the same law,’ he adds, [What law?] ‘the hamster gathers corn and grain, the dog hides his superfluous food’—[This at any rate seems a rational act.]—‘the falcon kills the hare by driving his beak into its neck,’ &c.
‘In the same way, all instinctive manifestations of man must be innate. The new-born child sucks the fingers and seeks the breast, as the puppy and calf seek the dug.’
The circumstance here indiscreetly mentioned of the child sucking the fingers as well as the nipple, certainly does away the idea of final causes. It shows that the child, from a particular state of irritation of its mouth, fastens on any object calculated to allay that irritation, whether conducive to its sustenance or not. It is difficult sometimes to get children to take the breast. Dr. S. takes up a common prejudice, without any qualification or inquiry, while it suits his purpose, and lays it down without ceremony when it no longer serves the turn. He proceeds—
‘I have mentioned above, that voluntary motion and the five external senses, common to man and animals, are innate. Moreover, if man and animals feel certain propensities and sentiments with clear and distinct consciousness, we must consider these faculties as innate.’—[The clear and distinct consciousness has nothing to do with the matter.]—‘Thus, if in animals we find examples of mutual inclination between the sexes, of maternal care for the young, of attachment, of mutual assistance, of sociableness, of union for life, of peaceableness, of desire to fight, of propensity to destroy, of circumspection, of slyness, of love of flattery, of obstinacy, &c. all these faculties must be considered as innate.’—[A finer assumption of the question than this, or a more complete jumble of instincts and acquired propensities together, never was made. The author has here got hold of a figure called encroachment, and advances accordingly!]—‘Let all these faculties be ennobled in man: let animal instinct of propagation be changed into moral love; the inclination of animals for their young into the virtue of maternal care for children; animal attachment into friendship; animal susceptibility of flattery into love of glory and ambition; the nightingale’s melody into harmony; the bird’s nest and the beaver’s hut into palaces and temples, &c.: these faculties are still of the same nature, and all these phenomena are produced by faculties common to man and animals. They are only ennobled in man by the influence of superior qualities, which give another direction to the inferior ones.’ Page 82.
This last passage appears to destroy his whole argument. For the Doctor contends that every particular propensity or modification of the mind must be innate, and have its separate organ; but if there are ‘faculties common to man and animals,’ which are ennobled or debased by their connexion with other faculties, then we must admit a general principle of thought and action varying according to circumstances, and the organic system becomes nearly an impertinence.
The following short section, entitled Innateness of the Human Faculties, will serve to place in a tolerably striking point of view the turn of this writer to an unmeaning, quackish sort of common-place reasoning.
‘Finally, man is endowed with faculties which are peculiar to him. Now it is to be investigated, whether the faculties which distinguish man from animals, and which constitute his human character, are innate. It must be answered, that all the faculties of man are given by creation, and that human nature is as determinate as that of every other being. Thus, though we see that man compares his sensations and ideas, inquires into the causes of phenomena, draws consequences and discovers laws and general principles; that he measures distances and times, and crosses the sea from one end to another; that he acknowledges culpability and worthiness; that he bears a monitor in his own breast, and raises his mind to the idea and adoration of God:—yet all these faculties result neither from accidental influence from without, nor from his own will. How indeed could the Creator abandon man in the greatest and most important occupations, and give him up to chance? No!’ Page 83.
No, indeed; but there is a difference between chance and a number of bumps on the head. One would think that all this, being common to the same being, proceeded from a general faculty manifesting itself in different ways, and not from a parcel of petty faculties huddled together nobody knows how, and acting without concert or coherence. Does man cross the seas, measure the heavens, construct telescopes, &c. from a general capacity of invention in the mind, or does the navigator lie perdu, shut up like a Jack-in-a-box in one corner of the brain, the mechanic in another, the astronomer in another, and so forth? That is the simple question. Dr. Spurzheim adds shortly after—
‘We every where find the same species; whether man stain his skin, or powder his hair; whether he dance to the sound of a drum or to the music of a concert; whether he adore the stars, the sun, the moon, or the God of Christians. The special faculties are every where the same.’ Page 85.
He ought to have said the general faculties are the same, not the special. But if there is not a specific faculty and organ for every act of the mind and object in nature, then Dr. Spurzheim must admit the existence of a general faculty modified by circumstances, and we must be slow in accounting for different phenomena from particular independent organs, without the most obvious proofs or urgent necessity. His organs are too few or too many.