WAYS OF NATURE 



cess of trial and failure. Man also achieves many 

 things through practice alone, or through the same 

 process of trial and failure. Much of his manual 

 skill comes in this way, but he learns certain things 

 through the exercise of his reason ; he sees how the 

 thing is done, and the relation of the elements of the 

 problem to one another. The trained animal never 

 sees how the thing is done, it simply does it auto 

 matically, because certain sense impressions have 

 been stamped upon it till a habit has been formed, 

 just as a man will often wind his watch before going 

 to bed, or do some other accustomed act, without 

 thinking of it. 



The bird builds her nest and builds it intelli 

 gently, that is, she adapts means to an end; but 

 there is no reason to suppose that she thinks about 

 it in the sense that man does when he builds his 

 house. The nest-building instinct is stimulated into 

 activity by outward conditions of place and climate 

 and food supply as truly as the growth of a plant is 

 thus stimulated. 



As I look upon the matter, the most wonderful 

 and ingenious nests in the world, as those of the 

 weaver-birds and orioles, show no more independent 

 self-directed and self-originated thought than does 

 the rude nest of the pigeon or the cuckoo. They 

 evince a higher grade of intelligent instinct, and that 

 is all. Both are equally the result of natural prompt 

 ings, and not of acquired skill, or the lack of it. One 

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