Inspiration.

themselves, as in the diverse aims and uses with which the Holy Spirit employs them; for, according to this theory, the Divine is all in Scripture, and the human intelligence its mere vehicle or passive instrument. The words of Scripture are no less the words of God than if he were heard to utter them from heaven. It follows from the same theory that inspiration is essentially intermitting. It is not a higher quality of any soul, but a divine afflatus, seizing the soul at certain moments, and abandoning it at others. While the canonical epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter are to be held inspired, the words of these apostles at other times may not have possessed any special authority. The authority of the Scripture which they have delivered, however, is absolute. The inspired or theopneustic document is throughout faultless, as the sole work of the Divine Spirit, faultless equally in its form and in its essence, in its spirit and its letter. It admits of no gradation; all is equally divine, and therefore equally accurate, whether it relate to some ordinary fact, or to some great truth of the supernatural life, whether it treat of a dogma or of the details of a narrative. As one of its recent supporters writes: "Every verse of the Bible, every word of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High." It follows no less that what God has thus miraculously written, he must have miraculously preserved. A providential canon is the plain sequence of a plenarily inspired Bible.

In opposition to this theory are various others, all of which impose certain limits upon the perfection of Scripture. Some confine inspiration to all that is directly relig ious in the Bible, to all that is directly of the character of revelation, leaving out of the question all that belongs to the sphere of science or ordinary history. Others exempt the form or letter of Scripture, and attribute inspiration only to its spirit, ideas, or doctrines. Others go still further, and comprise in the fallible form the mode of argument and expository details. Each of these theories supposes inspiration to be connected primarily with the authors rather than with the books of Scripture, sometimes with the extraordinary gifts accompanying the first preachers of the Word of God, sometimes with the peculiar privileges of prophets or apostles, and sometimes with their special position as immediate witnesses of the facts of revelation and their singular religious aptitude. Whatever differences may characterize the advocates of these respective views, it is plain that they, one and all, have abandoned the ground of the absolute infallibility of the letter of Scripture.

In a matter of controversy like the present, it is not our function to determine in favor of any particular view, but simply to indicate what the more important opinions are, and the grounds on which they are held. Those who claim for the letter of the Bible a freedom from all error or imperfection, do so on the à priori ground of necessity; such infallibility is held to be implied in the very idea of a revelation of the divine will; while those passages which seem inconsistent with the facts of science or of history, or with other parts of the Bible itself, admit, it is maintained, of satisfactory explanation. For such reconciliations of apparent discrepancies our readers are referred to the current commentaries and harmonies. Those theologians, again, who deny the necessity of infallibility, and hold that the inconsistencies referred to never have and never can be satisfactorily explained away (and their number has been for some time on the increase), argue in the following way: it is plain, first of all, and especially, that the question is not one to be settled according to any preconception, but according 10 the evidence of the facts given us in Scripture. The only right idea of inspiration is, as one has said, "that which we form from our knowledge of the Bible itself. It is a question to be solved not by speculating what the Bible ought to be, but by examining what it actually is." All à priori arguments are evidently at once inapplicable and dangerous on such a subject. The partisans of plenary inspiration maintain that it is necessary to the preservation of faith to hold, that God has not only revealed the truth to man, but that he has deposited that truth in an infallible record. Not only so; but the infallibility of the canon is no less indispensable; for all would be lost if any doubt was allowed to rest upon any portion of the Word of God. But if an infallible text and an infallible canon be necessary, why not also an infallible interpretation? Without the latter, the two former may be of no use. All may be lost by a false or defective commentary of the sacred text. It is plain that the idea of verbal inspiration cannot stop short of the conclusion of an infallible interpretation; and even such a conclusion, which upsets Protestantism, by denying the right of free inquiry, would not save it; for an infallible commentary would not necessarily insure infallible instruction—all might still be lost by the weakness, ignorance, or defect of the recipient mind. No infallibility of text, of canon, or even of interpretation, could insure the infallible reception of the truth, thus trebly guarded. If we would not be caught, then, in this absurd chain of assumption, we must break its first link, and ask, not what the Bible must be or should be, but what it is. This view is strongly argued in a recent treatise on inspiration by M. de Pressensé, one of the most distinguished of the French Protestant divines belonging to the evangelical school of theology. According to this writer, who may be taken as the representative of a large class of theological thinkers, the Bible is a mass of documents of varying age and varying authenticity; its text has undergone the usual changes attending the transmission of historical documents; it is marked by the usual inequalities and varieties of style that we meet with in any other

Inspiration. collection of ancient literature; it presents in many cases peculiar difficulties, differences and even contradictions of detail, scientific and historical errors. All who have studied the gospels minutely, and especially the quotations in the gospels and the epistles of St. Paul from the Old Testament, know that there are various inaccuracies and misapplications of facts throughout them. The same microscope of criticism that reveals to us the depths of the inner meaning of the divine message in all its manifold fullness, reveals to us also the imperfections, and even the contradictions, of the human messenger. The following are only a few of the instances in which such “imperfections and contradictions" show themselves.

1. The recital of the temptation in St. Matthew and St. Luke. In the former (Matt. iv. 6-8), the vision from the pinnacle of the temple is placed first; in the latter (Luke iv. 1-10), that from a lofty mountain takes precedence.

2. In Matt. x. 10, Jesus commands his apostles to take for their missionary journey neither scrip, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves." In Mark vi. 8, he commands them to "take nothing for their journey, save a staff only."

3. In the narrative of the passion, as in that of the resurrection, there are numerous contradictions of detail resting on a fundamental and striking unity. According to Mark xiv. 72, the cock is represented as crowing on each of the first and second occasions on which Peter denies his Lord. In the accounts given by the other evangelists, the cock only crows upon the third denial (Matt. xxvi. 74; Luke xxii. 60). The statemeat of the death of Judas differs materially in Matthew and in the Acts of the Apostles. According to the former, Judas casts down the pieces of silver, and departs and hangs himself; and the chief priests afterwards purchase with the price of his guilt the potter's field for the burial of strangers, hence called the field of blood. According to the Acts of the Apostles i. 18, Judas himself is represented as having purchased the field with the reward of iniquity;" then as having in some way (not explicitly stated in the narrative) met there a bloody death, from which circumstance the field took its name. In the narratives of the resurrection, it is well known there are numerous variations; and numerous palpable errors of memory as to historical facts occur, such as may be seen by comparing Mark ii. 26 with 1 Sam. xxi. 2-6, and 1 Cor. x. 8 with Numb. xxv. 9.

4. As to the citations of the Old Testament in the New, they are almost entirely taken from the Septuagint, and evidently in many cases quoted from memory, with little regard to their exact sense in the original. Thus, St. Matthew (ii. 6), in applying to the Messiah the prophecy of Micah (v. 2), says of Bethlehem precisely the reverse of the Septuagint. "Thou art too little to be reckoned among the thousands of Juda," he translates: Thou art not the least among the princes of Juda." In many cases, the New Testament writers, while repeating the inaccuracies of the Septuagint translation, turn them to admirable account; this is especially remarkable in the gospel of St. Matthew and the epistles of St. Paul. Thus (iii. 3) St. Matthew translates with the Septuagint: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness;" while the Hebrew is: "A voice cries, make plain in the wilderness the ways of the Lord" (Isaiah xl. 3). Compare also Matt. xii. 21 and Isaiah xlii. 4, also Matt. xv. 8 and Isaiah xxix. 13.

None of these errors, it is maintained, are of any material consequence so far as the substantial veracity of Scripture is concerned. The very fact that a microscopic criticism can detect no more serious inconsistencies in the scriptural writers, is rightly held to be one of the most striking testimonies that could be given to their truthfulness. Such slight inaccuracies are the mere freedoms which writers, thoroughly honest, and animated with a high interest which overlooks trifles permit themselves. But however unimportant in themselves, they are considered by many theologians to be altogether inconsistent with a theory of verbal inspiration. However minute, they are recognized as real discrepancies-human imperfections in the sacred record-and as consequently proving that the mere text or letter of Scripture is not infallible, that it cannot be regarded as a "direct utterance of the Most High."

Inspiration, therefore, according to these theologians, does not imply the infallibility of the scriptural text; it is something consistent with scientific, historical, exegetical, and even argumentative errors (witness, to quote no other example, St. Paul's allegorical argument about the sons of Abraham. Gal. iv. 22, 25). There is nothing valid, no divine authoritative element, it may be said, that can survive such deductions. If there are such errors in Scripture, why may it not all be imperfect or erroneous? The sufficient answer is, that it is not so-that, judged by the very same critical tests which detect such errors, the Bible remains an entirely unique book. Every Christian mind recognizes in it a higher divine knowledge and authority than in aught else. The divine spirit in Scripture makes itself felt, shines forth in every page of it; and this is inspiration in the highest sense, the mind of God meeting our minds in Scripture, enlightening, guiding, elevating, purifying them. There is nothing more in reality to be got from any theory than this. An inspired letter, or word, or message is nothing to any one in itself; the meaning is everything. We must understand the word or message. There is no degree of objective authority that can supersede this subjective proc ess of apprehension on our part. There cannot, therefore, be immunity from error, let the symbol or the text be as perfect as possible. It is only to us what we see it to mean; and this meaning, in the case of Scripture, shines with a divine power and luster

Inspired.
Instinct.

such as invest no other book. It bears its own divine witness. In such an idea of inspiration, criticism finds nothing inconsistent, nothing impossible, and no higher idea can be well formed of it.

INSPIRED, THE, or COMMUNITY OF TRUE INSPIRATION, a small body of Christians who profess to derive their origin from pietists of Germany and from French Protestants of the Cevennes a remnant of the Albigenses-named Camisards from the peculiar dress they wore. They receive the teachings of the German mystics, Böline and Schwenkfeld, and cherish evangelical opinions, but do not use the sacraments. They claim at times to be divinely inspired, retaining their mental activity, but becoming insensible to outward things. They hold their property to some extent in common. In 1844 they established a community at Ebenezer, Erie co., N. Y., which continued 10 years. They then removed to Iowa, and have now settlements in that state and in Canada.

INSTALLATION, in church law, means the ceremonial act or process by which a person presented and legally confirmed in a benefice is formally put into possession of his office, and by which he is fully empowered not alone to exercise its functions, but to enjoy its honors and emoluments. The ceremonial form, as well as the name, differs according to the office which is conferred, as "enthronization" for a bishop, "inducInstallation" properly regards the office of a canon or pretion for a rector, etc. bendary. The word is also used generally for a formal introduction to any office.

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INSTERBURG, a t. of Prussia, in the province of east Prussia, is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the Angerap, 15 m. w.n. w. of Gumbinnen. It contains a castle, and several educational institutions. Cloth-weaving, tanning, brewing, and distilling, with a trade in corn and linseed, are carried on. Pop. 75, 16,380. Insterburg had its origin in a case of the Teutonic order of knights, built here at an early period. At the close of the 16th c. it had attained the rank of a town, which increased considerably after the 17th c. about which time a number of Scottish families settled at Insterburg on account of its trade.

INSTINCT. It has been common to describe the actions of the lower animals as guided by principles different from what obtains in the human constitution. The power of self-preservation is considered as reason in man, and as instinct in the brutes; but this contrast does not contain a real opposition. There is much that is common in the impulses of men and animals. When an animal, having found a morsel agreeable to its taste, masticates and swallows it, and takes up another of the same, the mental operation is not essentially different from what a human being would go through in the like circumstances. In both instances we have an example of the exercise of will, or volition, which operates to promote the pleasures and ward off the pains of the sentient being.

The most important meaning connected with the terin instinct is what contrasts with experience, education and acquired knowledge. The original or innate tendencies and powers of the mind are to be distinguished from the powers that grow up in the course of the animal's experience of the world, and its companionship with other living creatures. There has been a disposition to underrate the acquired aptitudes of the inferior animals, and to refer their capability of self-preservation purely to their natural But in point of fact men and animals alike possess both or primitive endowments. instincts and acquisitions; for although in man the preponderance is greatly in favor of the acquired, he, too, must start from something primordial, the basis of the other.

In the first place, there are certain actions of importance to the safety and wellbeing of the individual that are termed reflex, or automatic. They seem to be almost out of the sphere of mind proper, as they are performed even unconsciously. Among these are the propulsion of the food along the alimentary canal, sneezing, respiration, etc. In all these we have important activities, which are inherent in the constitution, and are performed as effectually at the beginning of life as at the full maturity of the being.

In the second place, there is a certain original provision for rhythmical and combined movements among the active organs, more especially those concerned in locomotion. Thus, there is a natural tendency to alternate the limbs, although the human_insant cannot turn this to account at once for the ends of walking, as some of the quadrupeds can. From this alternation the two eyes and the two sides of the face are specially exempted, and brought under another arrangement equally primitive-namely, conBut all these cases alike illustrate the presence of an original mechanism of the frame, by which the movements are grouped up to a certain point.

currence.

In the third place, it may be safely maintained that there is an inborn tendency in all animals to act somehow, or to put forth the energies that they possess, without waiting for the stimulus of their sensations. This spontaneous activity is shown more or less in every creature after rest and nutrition (see SPONTANEITY). Destitute of any special direction at the outset, it yet prompts to a great many experiments or trials upon things, in the course of which the animal discriminates the suitable from the unsuitable by means of its sensations, and thereby learns to follow up the one and eschew the other.

'Fourthly, in connection with our emotions there are certain primitive links of mental state with bodily manifestation, which constitute a natural language of the feel

ings understood by the whole human race. The meaning of the smile, the frown, the sob, the contortion of pain, is uniform, and therefore instinctive. See EMOTION.

Fifthly, the power of will or volition, although it can be shown to be a growth, must have some primitive and instinctive elements in the constitution to start from. See WILL. Sixthly, there must be certain primordial powers of the human intellect. What these are, has been much disputed. Every one must concede the existence of some intellectual forces or faculties, as, for example, discrimination, the basis of all knowledge; retentiveness, the faculty of acquiring everything that is acquired; and agreement, or similarity (see INTELLECT); but it is contended by one school that we possess not merely powers of receiving knowledge by our contact with the world, and our consciousness of our minds, but actual notions or ideas that cannot be traced to our experience of the material or mental phenomena that we encounter. This is the doctrine of innate ideas, intuitive conceptions, à priori cognitions and judgments, first truths, etc. See COMMON SENSE.

Animals possess, as a rule, the instincts of human beings, with some that are special to themselves. They have the reflex actions above enumerated; they have, even in a more decisive form, the primitive combined movements for locomotion and other purposes; they have the spontaneous activities that come under control in their voluntary acts; they have emotional manifestations that are emittent, although their organs of expression are fewer; they have certain rudimentary powers, which are developed by experience into the activity of the will.

There are certain intellectual judgments that in man are mainly, if not wholly, the result of experience, but in animals are instinctive. The chief of these is the appreciation of distance and direction, which is shown in the ability to take an aim, as in birds pecking their food soon after they are born. The higher quadrupeds learn to feed themselves in a space of time too short for acquisition. It would seem also that animals have instinctive notions of things, as in the case of the aquatic animals knowing water at first sight, a fact generally affirmed, and not easy to contradict. In the same way, they may know their food at first sight before tasting it.

It is in connection with sociability that we have the largest compass of undoubted instincts. Animals seem to know their own species by intuitive perception. Predatory animals certainly recognize their prey by instinctive perception; the young kitten is aroused by the sight of a mouse; the dog pursues a cat with a decision and vehemence that could not be given by eduction. So animals that are preyed upon intuitively dread their captors.

While pleasure and pain must be regarded as fundamental attributes of the mind, inseparable from its working, the more special modes of feeling called emotions, as love, anger, fear, are states superinduced upon the primary modes of feeling, and as they appear from the earliest moments of life, they are properly termed instincts, being common to man and to animals.

Among the most notable instincts are the constructions of forethought—as the nests of birds, the cells of bees and wasps, the ant-hillocks, the beaver's dwellings, the spider's web; also the precautionary movements of animals, as in the migrations of birds and fishes, according to season. The striking and extraordinary anecdotes given of the sagacity of some animals, as the dog, the horse, the cat, the elephant, do not, properly speaking, exemplify instinct; they involve experience, memory, and reason, which animals are capable of in a greater or less degree, and with great individual differences, even in the same species. Respecting these various instinctive aptitudes, the account given until lately was that each distinct animal species was originally created so; and that the powers belonging to each were handed down without change from parents to offspring. A new rendering of the phenomena has been given in the doctrine of evolution. According to this doctrine, as applied to mind, instincts are experiences and acquisitions that have become hereditary.

"Though reflex and instinctive sequences are not determined by the experience of the individual organism manifesting them, yet the experiences of the race of organisms forming its ancestry may have determined them. Hereditary transmission applies to mental peculiarities as well as to physical peculiarities. While the modified bodily structure produced by new habits of life is bequeathed to future generations, the modified nervous structure produced by such new habits of life are also bequeathed; and if the new habits become permanent, the tendencies become permanent. Let us glance at the facts: Among the families of a civilized society, the changes of occupation and habit from generation to generation, and the intermarriage of families having different occupations and habits, greatly confuse the evidence of mental heredity. But it needs only to contrast national characters to see that mental peculiarities caused by habit become hereditary. We know that there are warlike, peaceful, nomadic, maritime, hunting, commercial races-races that are independent or slavish, active or slothful; we know that many of these, if not all, have a common origin; and hence it is inferable that these varieties of disposition, which have evident relations to modes of life, have been gradually produced in the course of generations. In domesticated animals, parallel facts are familiar. Not only the forms and constitutions, but the dispositions and instincts of horses, oxen, sheep, pigs, fowls, have become different from those of their wild kindred. The various breeds of dogs exhibit numerous varieties of mental character and faculty per

manently established by mode of life; and their several tendencies are spontaneously manifested. A young pointer will point out a covey the first time he is taken afield (Spencer's Psychology, vol. i., p. 422).

The strongest evidence, however, for the evolution theory is the remarkable similarity between instincts and acquisitions. Our instincts are just the powers that we need for our support and preservation, and that we should acquire by trying what actions are best suited for this purpose. An animal coming into the world unable to adjust the movements of its limbs, head, and mouth, to pick up the food that lies before it, would have to learn these movements as quickly as possible. Once acquired, they persist, and if very strongly embodied in the nervous system, they may be transmitted in a more or less perfect form to the next generation. Even granting that the transmission is not full and complete, a sufficient trace may be left to render the acquisition comparatively short. There are a great many instincts that need a certain amount of practice to make them operative; the first attempts at locomotion in most animals are feeble and awkward.

INSTITUTE, a term used in Scotch entail law to denote the person who is first mentioned or described as entitled to take the entailed estate. All those who come after him are called substitutes. When the institute dies before the entailer, the next person mentioned takes as institute. There are certain rules of construction which favor the institute, but these are entirely technical.

INSTITUTE, THE, English law, is the mode of citation or reference to chiefjustice Coke's great work, in four volumes, on English law. Another name for the first part of it is Coke upon Littleton, owing to its being a commentary by Coke upon a work of Littleton. The second book is a comment on acts of parliament, the third is a treatise on the pleas of the crown, and the fourth on the different kinds of courts.

INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. On the revival of letters, associations for mutual intercourse and co-operation, called academies (q.v.), were formed in Italy and France, one of which, composed of poets of no great note, was converted by Richelieu into a national institution, under the name of Académie Française, and met for the first time July 10, 1637. The chief object of this institution was the cultivation of the French language; but this was indifferently accomplished, owing to the intermeddling of the court, which arrogated to itself the right of directing the public taste. Many of the judgments of this academy were strangely erroneous-e. g., its rejection of the Cid of Corneille, and its refusal to admit Molière, Boileau, and La Bruyère as members. The academy was intrusted with the preparation of a dictionary of the French language; but the merits of this work have been much disputed, and the plan of it generally condemned.-The taste for devices, inscriptions and medals, which prevailed in the 17th c., suggested to Louis XIV. the foundation of the Académie des Inscriptions in 1663, for the immediate object of examining his collection of medals and other antiquities; but the abbé Bignon, superintendent of the royal library, secured its perpetuation, with an extension of its field of labor, as the Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, under which desig nation it met for the first time July 16, 1701.-The third academy in order, and at present the most distinguished scientific association in the world, the Académie Royale des Sciences, was founded by Colbert in 1666, remodeled by Bignon in 1699, and further enlarged in 1785.-The painter, Le Brun, founded in 1648 an Académie de Peinture, for which he obtained a charter in 1655; and in 1664, Colbert remodeled and established it as the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture.—An Académie Royale d'Architecture was also founded.

All these academies were suppressed by an edict of the convention, Aug. 8, 1793; but on Oct. 25, 1795, the directory established a great national association for the promotion of the arts and sciences, called the Institut National. It was at first divided into three classes: viz., sciences physiques et mathématiques; sciences morales et politiques; sciences de littérature et beaux-arts; but on the suppression of the second class by the first consul in 1803, the remaining classes were rearranged as follows: sciences physiques et mathématiques; langue et littérature Française; histoire et littérature ancienne; beaux-arts; and this arrangement continued during the empire. On March 21, 1816, a royal ordinance commanded that the four classes should be replaced by four academies, but the general title, "Institute of France," was retained, being modified by the epithet royal," "imperial,' or "national," in harmony with the political changes in France. Since 1870 it is, of course, the Institut National. The four academies are: 1. L'Académie Française; 2. L'Académie des Inscriptions et Belleslettres; 3. L'Académie des Sciences; 4. L'Académie des Beaux-Arts; and an ordinance, bearing date, Oct. 26, 1882, re-established the old second class as a fifth academy, L'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and this organization still subsists.

Each academy has its own independent government, and the free disposition of the funds alloted to it, an agency and secretaries; the library and the valuable collections of the institute are common to the five; the common fund is managed by a committee of ten members (two from each academy), under the presidency of the minister of public instruction. Members are elected by ballot, the election requiring to be confirmed by government, and members of one academy may be elected as members of any or all of the other four. Each member has an annual salary of 1500 francs, and the secretaries