Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/287

 from their enemies, preserve themselves from destruction, and are provided with that which is their natural good. This faculty is called instinct.

The minds of animals are not directed and governed by rational volition. They have no reason. How their minds are operative is illustrated by the state of man in dreaming.

Because of the relatively high organization of the soul of the superior animals, it is natural and evident that, in some cases, instinct would approach the lowest forms of reasoning. Instinct sometimes appears to involve cause and effect, as when an animal lifts a door-latch, or being sick leaves its proper food to feed upon some medicinal herb; yet such acts are not accompanied by an intelligent perception of cause and effect, and are therefore merely instinctive.

Incidents are common wherein animals have seemed to exercise reason, but upon a full understanding of all the circumstances their acts fall clearly within the compass of instinct. That animals have language, other than instinctive utterance and acts, is scarcely worthy of serious discussion. The higher animals being forms approaching so nearly the human, and having a corresponding spiritual counterpart, receive life more fully from the activities in the spiritual