206 THE REASON WHY: 



r But honest instinct comes a volunteer, 

 Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit; 

 While still too \vidc or short is human wit." POPE. 



The laws which govern reason are moral laws ; instinct is alone 

 under physical influence. A moral law is given to man only 

 because man alone has a moral nature, i.e., a nature distinct from 

 his physical nature. The lower animals have only a physical law, 

 which they strictly fulfil. Man is said to be the only ungrateful 

 being which Grod has created, because, having received a moral 

 nature, he frequently chooses to follow the law of physical nature 

 only : ignoring, or openly disobeying, the law of his moral 

 being. 



619. Of instinct we can know nothing further than that it is a name which we give 

 to those movements and actions of anim Is of which we can give no explanation. 

 The word instinct, though we can hardly avoid using it, is never anything else than 

 a subterfuge or our ignorance of the means by which any action of an animal is 

 brought about ; and we may rest assured that natural actions are no more per- 

 formed without means in the unexplained cases, than in the explained ones.* 



620. Why will one species of animal allow the young of 

 another species to suckle it ? 



Because it has been most beautifully and providentially ordered 

 that the process of suckling should afford pleasure to the 

 parent. So that when a dam has been deprived of its own 

 offspring, it derives some amount of gratification from the 

 suckling of another. 



621. Cats have been known to suckle hares ; pigs to give nurture to puppies ; and 

 cows to goats. It has even been asserted that human beings, exposed to death in 

 woods by unnatural parents, have been indebted to wild beasts for their nurture, 

 an occurrence which is not a whit more marvellous than animals of one species 



' allowing the offspring of a species totally opposed to it in habits and instinct to 

 suckle them. 



622. Why does the attachment between young animals and 

 their parents decline when the former arrive at maturity? 



Because, if the affections were allowed to operate for a longer 

 period, the dispersion of animals, which is as essential as the 

 scattering of the seeds of plants, would be materially checked 



Partingtou's " Cyclopaedia." 



