LECTURE II. 



OPERATIONS IN INORGANIC NATURE AND PLANT 

 LIFE THAT SIMULATE INSTINCT. 



Definitions of Paley, Whately and Hamilton considered. — The office 

 of the Physical Forces. — Life, Sensation, Volition. — Method of 

 discussion explained. — Positivism. — Instinct part of a series of 

 agencies. — Life depending upon the position of the earth and the 

 changes within it. — Geologic changes. — Activities of the plant. — 

 Instinct-like provisions of plants. — Community of action. — Special 

 provision of the tree for itself. — Special structures and functions. — 

 Provision ?nade by plants for their young. 



In our last lecture we gave three definitions of In- 

 stinct from writers of acknowledged authority, — 

 Paley, Whately and Hamilton. 



Definitions might be multiplied, but those are as 

 well fitted as any, for provisional use. Let us see 

 exactly what they affirm. Paley says there is a 

 propensity prior to experieiice and independeyit of in- 

 struction. From this we infer, that the propensity 

 is to do something which might by some beings be 

 learned from experience or that might be learned 

 by them from another, by instruction. But we are 

 not told whether the being that acts instinctively 



