the true nature of Instinct. 



The foregoing, however, it may perhaps he said, is an extra- 

 ordinary instance of the actions of instinct. In reply to this, the 

 question may be asked,— are not the most common and ordmary 

 instances of instinctive action equally illustrative of an intelligence 

 superior to the conscious faculties of the creature ; which iutellir 

 gence must therefore operate upon its conscious perception, and 

 constitute, as it were, the primum mobile, actuating and impelling 

 it to the most reasonable and circumstantial course of action that 

 can be conceived, for arriving at the fulfilment of the ends for which 

 it is brought into existence ? Does the spider in the curious act of 

 weaving its web think within itself and say, « I will extend my 

 threads in this order, and connect and tie them together transverse- 

 ly, to secure my web from the rude vibrations of the air; and in 

 the terminations which constitute the central point of my web, I 

 will provide myself a seat, where I may sit and watch what hap- 

 pens, and be ready to seize and envelppe every fly that is caught 

 in my trap ?— Or does the bee reason and say to itself, < 1 will take 

 my flight to such a field, where I know there is plenty of flowers, 

 and I will gather wax and honey from them, and of the wax J will 

 build contiguous cells in a particular arrangement and form, and 

 so disposed, that I and my companions may have free ingress and 

 egress, and in process of time may lay up a large store of honey, 

 sufficient for our necessities during the approaching winter, that we 

 may not starve ; and I will help to support, like a good citizen, 

 the political and economical prudence of the community r" 



We cannot surely conceive any such process of reflection as this 

 to pervade the consciousness of the creatures, although their acts 

 evidently include it in some way or other; and this I think amounts 

 to a full proof, that reasoning is in no case the effect of instinct, as 

 has been supposed by some philosophers ;* for it determines that 

 the voluntary powers of animals may be most forcibly directed to 

 a particular course of action, without any reasonable perception, 

 either of the act or of its consequences, on the part of the animals 

 themselves ; and shews that the instinct of animals is governed by 

 the influence of an intelligence, (acting in this case according to 

 an uniform mode or fixed law,) which cannot be ascribed to the 

 animals themselves ; and which evidently acts upon them above 

 * Smellie, in his Philosophy of Natural History, vol. i, p. 145, asserts ths 

 reasoning faculty to be " necessary result of instinct." 



