INSTINCT. 



27 



more restricted order of terrestrial animals. To 

 many has the commission been given to ravage 

 and slaughter by open violence ; others are 

 taught more insidious, though not less certain arts 

 of destruction ; and some appear to be created 

 chiefly for the purpose of quickly clearing the 

 earth of all decomposing animal or vegetable 

 materials (e. g. among the larger beasts of prey, 

 the hyena, the jackall, the crow, and the vulture; 

 among marine animals the Crustacea and nume- 

 rous mollusca, and among the lower orders, 

 innumerable tribes of insects.) 



" That a large portion of evil is the direct 

 consequence of this system of extensive war- 

 fare, it is in vain to deny. But although our 

 sensibility may revolt at the wide scene of car- 

 nage, our more sober judgment should place in 

 the other scale the great preponderating amount 

 of gratification which is the result. We must 

 take into account the vast accession that accrues 

 to the mass of animal enjoyment from the ex- 

 ercise of those powers and faculties which are 

 called forth by this state of constant activity ; 

 and when this consideration is combined with 

 that of the immense multiplication of life, 

 which is admissible on this system alone, we 

 shall find ample reason for acknowledging the 

 wisdom and benevolent intentions of the Crea- 

 tor, who, for the sake of a vastly superior good, 

 has permitted the existence of a minor evil." s 



This consideration is forcibly stated by Mr. 

 Kirby in relation to one very numerous class of 

 animals. " The object of the creation of the 

 Arachnidans seems to have been to assist in 

 keeping within due bounds the insect popula- 

 tion of the globe. The members of this great 

 and interesting class are so given to multiply 

 beyond all bounds, that were it not for the 

 various animals that are directed by the law of 

 their Creator to make them their food, the 

 whole creation, at least the organized part of it, 

 would suffer great injury, if not total destruc- 

 tion, from the myriad forms that would invest 

 the face of universal nature with a living veil of 

 animal and plant devourers. To prevent this 

 sad catastrophe, it was given in charge to the 

 spiders, to set traps every where, and to weave 

 their pensile toils from branch to branch and 

 from tree to tree, and even to dive beneath the 

 waters." " The Scorpions and other Pedipalps 

 are found only in warm climates, where they 

 are often very numerous. Insects multiply be- 

 yond conception in such climates, and unless 

 Providence had reinforced his army of insecti- 

 vorous animals, it would have been impossible 

 to exist in tropical regions. The animals we 

 are speaking of not only destroy all kinds of 

 beetles, grasshoppers, and other insects, but 

 also their larvae and eggs."-)" 



Without going into further details as to the 

 adaptation of the instincts and powers of 

 animals to their office in the world, we may 

 remark, that there are two peculiarities attend- 

 ing many of the phenomena of Instinct, which 

 make them perhaps more important than any 

 others, as indications of Design in the universe. 



* Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 46. 

 f Bridgewater Treatise, vol. ii. p. 302. 



1. The evidence of design and of intellect 

 which is drawn from the instinctive actions of 

 animals, is precisely similar to, and comes, into 

 strict comparison with, that by which each of us 

 is informed of the mental qualities, and even 

 of the mental existence of every human being 

 except himself. What evidence have we of the 

 existence of reason in any of our fellow-men ? 

 Only this, that their actions and their words, 

 which are a set of definite muscular actions, 

 appear obviously to be directed to certain ends, 

 and fitted for the attainment of these ends. 

 Therefore, we say, they indicate design or con- 

 trivance, i. e. reason or understanding, in the 

 agents. The adaptation of means to ends is 

 the indication of intellect, to which we yield 

 practical assent every hour of our lives, and it 

 would be a proof of deficiency of our own in- 

 tellect if we failed to do so. Now, when we 

 survey many of the instincts of animals, espe- 

 cially many of those which are directed to the 

 preservation of their lives or the reproduction 

 of their species, when we see birds of all 

 kinds building nests for their future progeny, 

 and afterwards vivifying their eggs by incuba- 

 tion, the salmon ascending rivers to deposit 

 their eggs in contact with the atmosphere, 

 beavers constructing their houses, bees or ants 

 piling together their cells and collecting then- 

 stores, the migratory birds repairing to warm 

 climates before winter, the reptiles excavating 

 their winter retreats, the squirrel, the dor- 

 mouse, or the pika, laying up their winter store 

 of provisions, the snail closing its shell and se- 

 curing its magazine of air for the return of spring, 

 the spider spinning its web, and preparing its 

 cell and trap-door, the ant-lion digging his pit- 

 fall, the fishing-frog spreading his lines, the 

 camel storing his stomach with water for con- 

 sumption in the desert, the pelican filling her 

 pouch with food for her young, and an infinity 

 of other contrivances which the organs of ani- 

 mals enable them to execute, which they do 

 execute day after day and year after year with 

 perfect precision, and without which they could 

 neither maintain their own existence rior perpe- 

 tuate their species; it is plain that we are con- 

 templating a set of living muscular actions, 

 equally adapted to certain definite ends, and 

 equally efficient for the attainment of those 

 ends, as the words or actions of any human 

 being ; and we cannot, without obvious and 

 gross inconsistency, decline to draw from them 

 the same inference that we habitually deduce 

 from the adaptation of means to ends by the 

 muscular actions of human beings. And if 

 we are satisfied by the considerations stated in 

 the beginning of this paper, and, in the case of 

 our own instinctive propensities, by the evidence 

 of our own consciousness, that the reason and 

 intelligence, and anticipation of consequences, 

 which are concerned in, and may be inferred 

 from, these instinctive actions of animals, are 

 not the mental attributes of the animals them- 

 selves, we have no resource but to attribute 

 their mental qualities to a superior Being, who 

 gave to the first individual of each species of 

 animals, and perpetuated to each race, its 

 organic structure, its sensations, its muscular 



