CONOIIOLOOY OF HEKM. 77 



celebated author of the "Essay on the human understanding," says, '4t 

 seems as evident that some of them do in certain instances reason, as that 

 they have sense, but only in particular ideas, just as they received them 

 frona the senses. They are, the best of them, tied up within narrow bounds, 

 and have not, I think, the faculty to enlarge them by any kind of abstraction." 

 The author of the "Natural History of Animals," asserts of thera that 

 their actions are "performed with a view to consequences, the result of a 

 train of reasoning in the mind of the animal." 



'^rhis every one of any observation must corroborate, while he allows, 

 with the author just referred to, that they are "remarkably deficient when 

 compared with those of menj that they cannot take so full a review of the 

 past, nor look forward with so penetrating an eye to the future; that they 

 do not accumulate observation on observation, or add the experience of one 

 generation to that of another." Another writer of eminence says, "We 

 shall readily allow that some of the inferior animals seem to have per- 

 ception of particular truths, and, within very narrow limits, the faculty of 

 reason." 



Instinct has been defined to be a certain power "by which, independent 

 of all instruction or experience, without deliberation, and without having 

 any end in view," beyond an immediate one, "animals are unerringly 

 directed to do, spontaneously, whatever is necessary for the preservation of 

 the individual, or the continuation of its kind." On the other hand, 

 "Reason," says Ur. Reid, "has two offices, or degrees; the first is to judge 

 of things self evident; the second, to draw conclusions that are not self- 

 evident from things that are." That all animals have instinct is a plain 

 matter of fact. 



Now do certain animals, in addition to such, their instinctive actions, 

 perform any which may be called rational actions? Do they draw conclusions 

 from certain facts, and act on the experience that they have gained, and 

 that even, perhaps, in a way which may be opposed to their instinctive 

 notions? Might not volumes be written on the apparently reasoning 

 actions of the Elephant, the Horse, and the Dog? Nay, is there not much 

 to be said on this head, even of the Ass, the Hog, and the Goose — 

 animals whose very names are by-words for expressing stupidity and 

 sirapleness? 



( 2'o be continued.) 



A DAY'S CONCHOLOGISING ON THE ISLET OF HERM. 



BV W. V. GUISE, ESQ., F.G.S. 



Who knows anything of the little islet of Herm? Its very name is 

 omitted from the lists of the Channel Islands in many of the elementary 



