16 
_VI. The perishableness of all forms and manifestations of 
Matter and Force, while the Matter and Force themselves can 
never be destroyed by any means yet known to man. 
Many of us have been all our lives, lovers and observers of 
what is called Nature, that is, of the things of earth and sea and 
sky which surround us. Whatever details of them we have come 
to know appears to us more real, more true and actual, than any- 
thing else ; and when checked off, corrected, and amplified, by 
other observers, we feel them to be certainties. This kind of 
study must necessarily be carried on objectively, not subjectively ; 
by observation of outside things, not by thought or imagination 
within ; so that it is constantly fed by inexhaustible Nature, and 
has not to be sustained by internal effort or mental resource, which 
must sooner or later come to anend. But there is no time to enlarge 
on the great value of this kind of education. Probably we are 
only just beginning to understand its use, in promoting clearness 
and. accuracy of mind, and in keeping us freer from intellectual 
error than most other modes of training ; because that which we 
study, and which is the subject or our attention, is, not the words 
and ideas, of men, but the existence and life-history of the works 
of God. 
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER rx, 1889. 
INSTINCT, 
BY 
Mik, 7. ES ASE LWioOr, 
Of the innumerable problems which Nature offers to her 
students, none seem to me more worthy of their careful study 
than that of Instinct. True it is that theologians and philosophers 
have settled the problem long ago, and to their entire satisfaction ; 
but, unfortunately, they have both proceeded upon insufficient 
data, or rather, upon no data at all, and, as a consequence, their 
conclusions are constantly being shown to be erroneous. The 
materials for a full and correct explanation of Instinct are at 
present very meagre, and, what is worse, many of them are un- 
trustworthy. The unfortunate spirit of exaggeration into which so 
many fall vitiates one half of the stories on animal intelligence 
which we hear. When will people learn that exaggeration is the 
