WAYS OF NATURE 



call instinct, innate tendency, habit of growth, as 

 are the plants and trees. Their lives revolve around 

 three wants or needs the want of food, of safety, 

 and of offspring. It is in securing these ends that 

 all their wit is developed. They have no wants out 

 side of these spheres, as man has. Their social wants 

 and their love of beauty, as in some of the birds, are 

 secondary. It is quite certain that the animals that 

 store up food for the winter do not take any thought 

 of the future. Nature takes thought for them and 

 gives them their provident instinct. The jay, by his 

 propensity to carry away and hide things, plants 

 many of our oak and chestnut trees, but who dares 

 say that he does this on purpose, any more than that 

 the insects cross-fertilize the flowers on purpose ? 

 Sheep do not take thought of the wool upon their 

 backs that is to protect them from the cold of win 

 ter, nor does the fox of his fur. In the tropics sheep 

 cease to grow wool in three or four years. 



All the lower animals, so far as I know, swim 

 the first time they find themselves in the water. 

 They do not have to be taught : it is a matter of 

 instinct. It is what we should expect from our 

 knowledge of their lives. Not so with man ; he must 

 learn to swim as he learns so many other things. 

 The stimulus of the water does not at once set in 

 motion his legs and arms in the right way, as it does 

 the animal s legs ; his powers of reason and re 

 flection paralyze him his brain carries him down. 

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