Learnmg from Experience, 201 



under the guidance of Intelligence ? If they do not, 

 then we must acknowledge that there is introduced 

 into the works of nature, a false show, which is ut- 

 terly abhorrent to our notions of truthfulness, and 

 subversive of confidence in all our reasoning from 

 natural phenomena. Animals, certainly, learn by 

 experience, and often guide their lives as wisely by 

 it, as most men do. Birds fear hawks instinctively ; 

 but they learn, by experience, that man and many 

 other things are to be dreaded, and the conditions 

 under which they are most dangerous. The crow 

 learns that men walking alone, are apt to be dan- 

 gerous ; and that when riding, they are compara- 

 tively harmless. He soon allows the train of cars 

 to thunder by him, while he sits by the road side, 

 as unmoved by its roar, and fire, and smoke, and 

 engineers, as he is by the clouds that pass over him. 

 He has learned that locomotives, and the men on 

 them, are not dangerous to crows. 



The elephant, that has broken through a bridge, 

 fears to trust himself upon another, until he has 

 satisfied himself that it is safe. Old animals learn 

 to fear dangerous things, which young animals may 

 be destroyed by, and to disregard other things, that 

 frighten the young. There is. In this respect, a very 

 wide range of experience for many animals. The 

 same kinds of animals vary in their knowledge, ac- 

 cording to their age and opportunity of learning, 

 as men do. 



Probably there is no such thing as stupidity in 

 Instinct proper. It is a difficult question to settle; 

 but we judge so, on account of the great uniformity 

 9^^ 



