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VI. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BIRDS' NESTS. 



Instinct or Reason in the Construction of Birds' Nests. 



BIRDS, we are told, build their nests by instinct, while 

 man constructs his dwelling by the exercise of reason. 

 Birds never change, but continue to build for ever on 

 the self-same plan ; man alters and improves his houses 

 continually. Reason advances ; instinct is stationary. 



This doctrine is so very general that it may almost 

 be said to be universally adopted. Men who agree 

 on nothing else, accept this as a good explanation of 

 the facts. Philosophers and poets, metaphysicians and 

 divines, naturalists and the general public, not only 

 agree in believing this to be probable, but even adopt 

 it as a sort of axiom that is so self-evident as to need 

 no proof, and use it as the very foundation of their 

 speculations on instinct and reason. A belief so general, 

 one would think, must rest on indisputable facts, and 

 be a logical deduction from them. Yet I have come to 

 the conclusion that not only is it very doubtful, but 

 absolutely erroneous ; that it not only deviates widely 

 from the truth, but is in almost every particular exactly 

 opposed to it. I believe, in short, that birds do not 

 build their nests by instinct; that man does not con- 



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