ch
we generally understand that term, because the mind has no time for
consideration, far less for reasoning, during the short moment that
occurs between the cause and the effect.

The object which we have chiefly in view at present is, to point out the
great end designed by Nature in all these actions, which is simply _the
application of knowledge_. There is the knowledge that objects entering
the eye will give pain, and that the shutting of the eye will defend it.
This we have shown is not an instinctive operation, but must have been
acquired by experience;--and it is this principle, into the nature of
which we are now enquiring, that prompted the child in the special case
to apply its knowledge by shutting the eye. In like manner, in the case
of the missile thrown at the head, there is a previous knowledge of the
effect which it will produce, and a knowledge also of the means by which
it is to be avoided,--and it is avoided;--and in the case of losing the
equilibrium, there is nothing more than the application of a latent
knowledge, now suddenly brought into use on the spur of the moment, that
by the movement of the foot the body will be supported. The principle,
whatever it be, which instigates children and adults to do all this, is
the subject of our present enquiry, and which for the present we have
denominated the "Animal," or "Common sense." We shall therefore a little
more particularly attend to its various indications.

The operation of this principle in the infant has already been pointed
out. When it has learned by experience that its nurse is kind, it
stretches forth its little hands, and desires to be with the
nurse;--when in its first attempt at walking it experiences a fall, it
applies this knowledge, by refusing again for some time to walk;--and
when it burns its finger at the flame of the candle, the application of
that knowledge induces it ever after to avoid both fire and flame.

In after life the same principle continues to operate both
independently of reason, and in conjunction with it. In encountering the
air of a cold night, we, without reasoning on the matter, wrap ourselves
closer in our cloak. When we turn a corner, and meet a sharp frosty
wind, we lower the head to protect the uncovered face. When we emerge
from the house, and perceive that the dulness of the day indicates rain,
we almost instinctively return for a cloak or an umbrella. And the
mariner at sunset, when he sees an opening in