WAYS OF NATURE 



instructed in her maternal duties: they are instinc 

 tive with her; it is of vital importance to the contin 

 uance of the species that they should be. If it were 

 a matter of instruction or acquired knowledge, how 

 precarious it would be ! 



The idea of teaching is an advanced idea, and 

 can come only to a being that is capable of returning 

 upon itself in thought, and that can form abstract 

 conceptions conceptions that float free, so to 

 speak, dissociated from particular concrete objects. 



If a fox, or a w T olf, for instance, were capable of 

 reflection and of dwelling upon the future and upon 

 the past, it might feel the need of instructing its 

 young in the matter of traps and hounds, if such a 

 thing were possible without language. When the 

 cat brings her kitten a live mouse, she is not think 

 ing about instructing it in the art of dealing with 

 mice, but is intent solely upon feeding her young. 

 The kitten already knows, through inheritance, 

 about mice. So when the hen leads her brood forth 

 and scratches for them, she has but one purpose 

 to provide them with food. If she is confined to the 

 coop, the chickens go forth and soon scratch for 

 themselves and snap up the proper insect food. 



The mother s care and protection count for much, 

 but they do not take the place of inherited instinct. 

 It has been found that newly hatched chickens, when 

 left to themselves, do not know the difference be 

 tween edible and non-edible insects, but that they 

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