Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/47

 he says. Will you sit there, facing the window, dear?’—as they entered the dining-room. ‘I should like to know your opinion about parrots, Mr Bristley. Is it possible, after all, that they understand human language?’

‘I believe they do,’ he replied, ‘to the same extent as a very young child does, that is, not grammatically or analytically, but connecting certain sounds with certain things.’

‘Exactly; that’s what I think,’ said Mrs Guineabush. ‘It seems to me there’s a great deal of twaddle talked about animal instinct and human reason: don’t you think so? It’s only our conceited ignorance that makes us draw such wide distinctions between ourselves and the lower animals.’

‘I quite agree with you,’ he answered. ‘Reason is nothing more than the analysed ingredients of instinct. Every act of instinct can be described as an act of rapid reasoning. For example, if I withdraw my hand in haste when about to touch a stinging-nettle, I do not deliberately argue, “when I have before touched plants of that class, I have been stung: what has occurred before will occur again, given exactly similar conditions: ergo, if I touch that nettle I shall be stung.” I say that I do not go and spell out all that to myself; but the act of withdrawing my hand in haste is equivalent to that argument gone through in a second of time.’

‘I see,’ said Mr Guineabush, who had followed attentively. ‘Then according to that, Mr Bristley, you make instinct a superior quality to reason, in the sense, at least, that the whole is superior to its parts or processes.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ he replied.

‘Rather a triumph for us women,’ observed Mrs Guineabush, glancing at Lesbia; ‘we are always said to be more instinctive, men more rational.’

‘That’s nothing new, Mrs Guineabush,’ said she.

‘Every department of philosophy whatever,’ said her uncle,