Descartes regarded animals purely as machines, as automata provided with mechanical apparatus. It would be difficult to surpass our great philosopher in absurdity when he treats of these animal machines.[12] _Equidem bonus dormitat Descartes._ The systematic errors of Buffon on the same subject are well known.
The partizans of Descartes and of Buffon have popularized the idea of instinct put in the place of intelligence, of the word replacing the thing. But, in simple truth, what difference is there between intelligence and instinct? None. These two words only represent two different degrees of the same faculty. Instinct is simply a weaker degree of intelligence. If we read the writings of naturalists of this country who have studied the question, Frederick Cuvier (brother to George Cuvier), and Flourens,[13] who has but commented upon Frederick Cuvier's book on the more profound work of a learned contemporary writer, M. Fée of Strasbourg,[14] we shall easily find that no fundamental distinction between intelligence and instinct can be established, and that the whole secret of our philosophers and naturalists consists in calling the intelligence of animals, which is weaker than ours, _instinct_.
It is, then, the pride of mankind which has attempted to place a barrier, which in reality has no existence, between us and the animal. The intelligence of the animal is less developed than that of the man, because his wants are fewer, his organs are less highly finished, and because the sphere of his activity is more limited, but that is all. And sometimes, even, we must not forget that the animal exceeds the man in intelligence. Look at the rude and brutal waggoner, beside his good and docile horse, which he mercilessly beats and abuses, while his faithful auxiliary fulfils his task with patient exactness, and say, is it not the master who is the brute, and the animal who is the intelligent being? In kindness--that sweet emanation of the soul--animals often excel men. Every one knows the horrid story of the man who carried his dog to a river to drown him, but who fell into the water himself, and was on the point of drowning. The faithful companion whom he had flung in to die was there; he swam to his master, and dragged him into safety. Then the dog's master, making his footing sure this time, seized the creature who had just rescued him, and drowned him.