But to return to my purpose: I intreat the reader to reflect on any one fact of this kind, whether occurring in his own experience, or selected from the numerous anecdotes of the dog preserved in the writings of zoologists. I will then confidently appeal to him, whether it is in his power not to consider the faculty displayed in these actions as the same _in kind_ with the Understanding, however inferior _in degree_.--Or should he even in these instances prefer calling it _Instinct_, and this in _contra_-distinction from _Understanding_, I call on him to point out the boundary between the two, the chasm or partition-wall that divides or separates the one from the other. If he can, he will have done what none before him have been able to do, though many and eminent men have tried hard for it: and my recantation shall be among the first trophies of his success. If he cannot, I must infer that he is controlled by his dread of the _consequences_, by an apprehension of some injury resulting to Religion or Morality from this opinion; and I shall console myself with the hope, that in the sequel of this work he will find proofs of the directly contrary tendency.--Not only is this view of the Understanding, as differing in _degree_ from Instinct and _in kind_ from Reason, innocent in its possible influences on the religious character, but it is an indispensable preliminary to the removal of the most formidable obstacles to an intelligent Belief of the _peculiar_ doctrines of the Gospel, of the _characteristic_ Articles of the Christian Faith, with which the Advocates of the truth in Christ have to contend;--the evil _heart_ of Unbelief alone excepted.
[98] The philosopher, whom the Inquisition would have burnt alive as an atheist, had not Leo X. and Cardinal Bembo decided that the work might be formidable to those semi-pagan Christians who regarded Revelation as a mere make-weight to their boasted Religion of Nature; but contained nothing dangerous to the Catholic Church or offensive to a true believer. [He was born in 1462, and died in 1525.--H. N. C.]
[99] A discourse by Prof. J. H. Green. This, "On Instinct," was afterwards printed by Prof. Green with his 'Vital Dynamics,' 1840. We give it as so published in the Appendix to the present edition; though, of course, the "report," apparently verbal, on which Coleridge's remarks of 1825 are founded, may have differed somewhat from the Professor's text as published in 1840.--ED.