existing an active organ, an impulse from within. Without certain vital forces in the interior, there could be neither hunger nor thirst, nor necessity for respiration, nor necessity of the union of the sexes. Thus the exterior necessities always suppose an interior force.

From this we may form an opinion of the vague and obscure language of some naturalists: "The sensibility, more or less cultivated by the necessities and by circumstances, produces the different degrees of intelligence, whether in the species or in individuals. What we regard in them as the natural sagacity of instinct, frequently is only a development of that love of self which is a necessary consequence of sensibility: it is not to instinct, it is to the faculty of perception and its effects, that the means belong, which animals employ to satisfy the wants of their natural appetite. It appears certain, that, if cold and other external agents did not cause the rabbit to suffer, more than the hare is affected by them, this animal, which now digs its burrow, would hardly be induced to take the trouble."

The same George Leroy, otherwise an excellent observer, wished to derive the cunning and in general the inventions and ingenious actions of animals, from a strong sense of want.

The rabbits which we keep in our stables, are certainly not incommoded by the cold; yet we cannot prevent them from digging their burrows. And why does not the hare, when pursued by the hounds, feel the urgent necessity of seeking an asylum under ground? How happens it that such different external circumstances produce absolutely the same instincts, the same inventions, the same ingenious actions in all individuals of the same species; while the same circumstances engender opposite instincts, and very different inventions and ingenious actions in other species? Why attribute to external circumstances the qualities of animals, when it is confessed, that the man of the greatest genius could add nothing to their sagacity, when it is aroused and exercised by difficulties?

Who does not see, that in all discussions on the natural wants, men have constantly confirmed the false notion that external objects create the instincts, propensities, faculties, with this other true notion, that external circumstances can arouse the faculties inherent in the animal, call them forth, and give them activity?

Can Attention give rise to any Instinct, Faculty, or Propensity whatsoever?

It has long been one of the favorite notions of many philosophers, that attention is the source of all the faculties of man; that one may acquire such or such a faculty, according as he directs his attention to such or such an object, according as he cultivates the faculty in question. Helvetius* has gone so far as to say, that there is no well-organized man, who cannot exercise his attention with all the force and the constancy, which would need to be employed in order to elevate him to the rank of the greatest men. Such is the eager zeal for deriving from a single principle all the phenomena of animal life! Condillac made sensation the source of all the faculties. According to him, recollection, memory, comparison, judgment, reflection, imagination, and reasoning, are included in the faculty of perceiving. M. Laromiguiére, seeing that sensations are almost the same in all men, while their moral and intellectual faculties are infinitely different, and that the sensations are only passive, believed himself, obliged to admit attention to be the generating principle of all the faculties. The attention of Laromiguiére is the reflection of Locke. Meanwhile no one disputes that sensation, reflection and attention are innate faculties. But, do these faculties give rise to a specific propensity or talent?

* De la Espirit Dumas, Physiologie, T. iv. p. 12.

Let us see how attention is exercised in animals and in man; and the reader will judge whether the faculties, instincts, and propensities, are an effect of attention, or whether attention is the effect of an innate instinct, propensity, or talent.

Both men and animals are endowed with different instincts, propensities, and talents. With each instinct, propensity, and talent, nature has established determinate relations in the external world. There is, for example, a determinate relation between the silk-worm and the leaf of the mulberry-tree; between the ferret and the rabbit; between the duck and the water; between the hen and her chickens; between man and woman, &c. It is thus, that every living being has certain points of contact with determinate external objects. The more energetic the instinct, the propensity, or the talent, the more numerous are these points of contact; the more intimate are they, and the greater, consequently, the affinity of each quality to its determinate object.

When an animal or a man is excited by the relation which exists between him and his relative object, the man or the animal is found in a state of attention. The hungry fox scents the hare; the falcon, gliding through the air, perceives the lark; they are then attentive; the philosopher is struck with a happy idea; he is then attentive. Now, you will explain why each animal has the habit of fixing his attention on a different determinate object, and why each different man fixes his on different objects. The roe-buck and the pigeon regard with indifference, without attention, the serpent and the frog, objects of the attention of the hog and the stork. The child fixes his attention on playthings; the woman, on her children and on dress; men, according to their individual dispositions, on women, horses, battles, the phenomena of nature, &c. Hence, the difference which travellers make, in their descriptions of the same country and the same nation; hence, the diversity of the judgments which different men pass on the same objects; and, as La Bruyére says, if each reader expunged, or

changed according to his fancy, every thing in a book repugnant to his taste, or, which he judged unworthy his attention, there would not be a word of the author's left in it.

Every instinct, propensity, and talent, has, therefore, its attention. Attention is, therefore, an effect, an attribute of a pre-existing innate faculty, and any thing rather than the cause of this faculty.

If instincts, propensities, and talents are feeble, their relations to their objects are equally so, and neither man nor animal will have a long or a strong attention. It is for this reason that, in infancy, when certain organs are still undeveloped, and, in old age, when the organs have lost their energy, we regard with coldness the same objects, which, at the age of manhood, excite our liveliest interest.

There is no attention, not even the possibility of attention, where there is no interest, no propensity, no talent, in relation with external objects. Who will inspire the horse with attention for the monuments, which we erect to glory and to immortality? or, the ram, for our arts and sciences? To what purpose to attribute, with Vicq d' Azyr, the want of attention of monkeys, to their turbulence? Show one a female, or a good fruit, and you will find him attentive. To wish to make him attentive to your lectures on neatness or decency, is to forget that his organization is imperfect in comparison with that of man, and that there exists no point of contact between these qualities, and the innate qualities of the monkey. The same thing takes place in idiots.

No one, I suppose, will be tempted to derive from attention, the ingenious aptitudes, instincts, and propensities of animals. Who would maintain, that the beaver, the squirrel, the loriot, and the caterpillar, build, only in consequence of an attention, which they must have directed to these objects, when they were still unknown to them? Even among men, genius ordinarily commences its great works, as it were by instinct, without being aware of its own talent.

In other respects, I leave attention and exercise, as well as education, possessed of all their rights. It is not enough for one to be endowed with active faculties; exercise and application are indispensable to acquire facility and skill. To awaken the attention of men of coarse minds, we must either make a strong impression on their senses,* or we must limit ourselves to the ideas and objects with which they are familiar; that is to say, with which they have already points of contact.

These considerations will suffice to reduce to its just value the merit of the abstraction so much cherished by philosophers, attention.

Can Pleasure and Pain produce any Moral Quality, or Intellectual Faculty?

Some rest on the doctrine of Aristippus, who explains, in an arbitrary and very inexact manner, the principle of his master, Socrates, with regard to the happiness of man; to regard desire and aversion, pleasure and pain, as the sources, not only of our actions, but likewise of all our qualities and all our faculties.

Animals, children, and half-idiots, are as sensible to desire and aversion, to pleasure and pain, as adult and reasonable men; they ought, then, according to the opinion of Aristippus, to possess as many qualities, the one as the other. It is with desire and aversion as with attention. For what object does a man or an animal feel desire? Is it not for the object, which is most in harmony with his propensities and his talents? The setter has a desire for the chase; the beaver for building, &c. Such a man tastes the most lively pleasure in generously pardoning offences; another rejoices when he succeeds in satisfying his vengeance; this man places his happiness in the possession of riches; the pride of

* Propensities.