the true nature of Instinct. 21 



g'res which thus influence and direct it in the most essential of its 

 actions. Man is endowed with the love of science ; he, therefore, 

 experiences a delight proper to his nature as a scientific agent, from 

 the contemplation of a means which is instrumental in the accom- 

 plishment of an end : he is also gifted with the love of usefulness, 

 and therefore receives a moral delight from the accomplishment of 

 the end itself, which science is the means of effecting. Not so 

 the brute : — the architectural contrivance and discrimination of 

 the Beaver, which is nevertheless much inferior to that of various 

 species of Termites; — the surprising intelligence of the Hive-bee 

 and others of the Apes; — the ingenious mechanism of the spider : — 

 all these determinations of instinct, which, when viewed in connec- 

 tion with the animals in whom they are displayed, are so astonish- 

 ing, form no objects of contemplation to them, while to the hu- 

 man mind they are the subjects of intellectual perception and 

 reflection, advancing in many instances even to sublimity. 



When we observe, in the insect world, in beings apparently the 

 most insignificant, an intelligence the most perfect, presenting the 

 most wonderful foresight, provision, and design, we are led at 

 ouce to the recognition of this intelligence, as a principle which 

 cannot, with any degree of propriety, be attributed to the creature, 

 as properly its own ; and we perceive, that in these instances thus 

 to attribute it to those humble animals, would be to raise them to 

 an eminence far above the most sagacious quadrupeds. 



Innumerable are the instances among insects, in which the 

 agency of intellectual and scientific powers, altogether superior to 

 the proper consciousness of the creatures, is to be observed ; and it 

 may be remarked, that as we descend in the scale of sentient 

 being, this intellectual agency appears to develope itself in a man- 

 ner proportionality more wonderful ; so as to afford the most sub- 

 stantial evidences of the reality of its existence and operation. 



That Bees exercise the principles of a science, of which they 

 are wholly unconscious, is beautifully exemplified in the construc- 

 tion of their cells ; the general form of these, it is well known, is 

 that which includes a greater space than any other which could be 

 given to them, without leaving a void space between the contigu- 

 ous cells; each of which, from this circumstance, supplies one of the 



