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In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
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INSTINCT'IVE, a. Prompted by instinct; spontaneous; acting without reasoning, deliberation, instruction or experience; determined by natural impulse or propensity. The propensity of bees to form hexagonal cells for holding their honey and their young, must be instinctive.
Of or pertaining to instinct; derived from,
or prompted by, instinct; of the nature of instinct; determined by
natural impulse or propensity; acting or produced without reasoning,
deliberation, instruction, or experience; spontaneous.
"Instinctive motion." Milton. "Instinctive
dread." Cowper.
With taste instinctive give Have we had instinctive intimations of the death of some absent friends? Bp. Hall. * The terms instinctive belief, instinctive judgment, instinctive cognition, are expressions not ill adapted to characterize a belief, judgment, or cognition, which, as the result of no anterior consciousness, is, like the products of animal instinct, the intelligent effect of (as far as we are concerned) an unknown cause. Sir H. Hamilton. Syn. -- Natural; voluntary; spontaneous; original; innate; inherent; automatic. | ||||||||