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V. 

 ON INSTINCT IN MAN AND ANIMALS. 



THE most perfect and most striking examples of what 

 is termed instinct, those in which reason or observa- 

 tion appear to have the least influence, and which 

 seem to imply the possession of faculties farthest re- 

 moved from our own, are to be found among insects. 

 The marvellous constructive powers of bees and wasps, 

 the social economy of ants, the careful provision for 

 the safety of a progeny they are never to see mani- 

 fested by many beetles and flies, and the curious pre- 

 parations for the pupa state by the larvae of butterflies 

 and moths, are typical examples of this faculty, and 

 are supposed to be conclusive as to the existence of 

 some power or intelligence, very different from that 

 which we derive from our senses or from our reason. 



How Instinct may be best Studied. 



Whatever we may define instinct to be, it is evi- 

 dently some form of mental manifestation, and as we 

 can only judge of mind by the analogy of our own 

 mental functions and by observation of the results of 

 mental action in other men and in animals, it is in- 

 cumbent on us, first, to study and endeavour to com- 

 prehend the minds of infants, of savage men, and of 



