INSTINCT OF INSECTS. -467 



by the reciprocal pressure of the cylindrical bodies of 

 these insects against each other ^ ! ! 



Nor is it requisite to advert at length to the expla- 

 nations of instinctive actions more recently given by 

 Steffens, a German author (one of the transcenden- 

 talists, I conclude, from the incomprehensibility of his 

 book to my ordinary intellect), who says that the pro- 

 ducts of the vaunted instinct of insects are nothing but 

 *^ shootings out of inorganic animal masses" (anorgis- 

 che anschusse) ''' ; and by Lamarck % who attributes them 

 to certain inherent inclinations arising from habits im- 

 pressed upon the organs of the animals concerned in 

 producing them, by the constant efflux towards these 

 organs of the nervous fluid, which during a series of 

 ages has been displaced in their endeavours to per- 

 form certain actions which their necessities have given 

 birth to. The mere statement of an hypothesis of 

 which the enunciation is nearly unintelligible, and 

 built upon the assumption of the presence of an unseen 

 fluid, and of the existence of the animal some millions 

 of years, is quite sufficient, and would even be unne- 

 cessary if it were not of such late origin. Neither 

 shall I detain you with any formal consideration of 

 the hypothesis advanced by Addison and some other 

 authors, that instinct is an immediate and constant ira- 



^Hht. Nat. Edit. 1785, V. 277. 



"^ Beitrage zur innern Nalurgcschiclife der Erde 1801, p. 298. 



" In his PJiilosophie Zoologiqiie, Paris 1809 (ii. 325) — a work which 

 every zoologist will, I think, join with me in regretting should be de- 

 voted to uY taphyslcal disquisitions built on the most gratuitous assump- 

 tions, instead of comprising that luminous generalization o{ faets rela- 

 tive to the animal world which is so great a desideratum, and for. per- 

 forming which satisfactorily this eminent naturalist ii so well quali&ed. 



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