THE RELIGION OF NATUEE 



has only been able to provide animals, other than 

 man, with a set of ready-made impulses, which do 

 not always suit circumstances that are entirely 

 novel. 



As an instance, we may take the habit of many 

 moths whose outspread wings are so mottled 

 and streaked with grays and browns as to be 

 concealed admirably when the creature rests on 

 tree-trunk or rock of " hiding " themselves for 

 the day on black-painted palings, where they are 

 conspicuous thirty yards off. There were no such 

 things as black palings when the insects acquired 

 their habit of resting with outspread wings on 

 any perpendicular surface, and nature has not 

 been able to teach them to discriminate. 



In the same way, when some jungle in India 

 has been fired, the gray-brown jackals will crouch 

 in full view to " hide " upon the blackened 

 ground. There were no such things as jungle 

 fires when nature gave the jackal a gray -brown 

 hide which conceals it so well on the dry gray- 

 brown earth; and therefore the beast has never 

 learned that he should not crouch on black 

 ground. 



Thus we see that there are some cases in which 

 instinctive habits go far beyond human reason in 

 the wonderful results obtained, and others which 

 fall so far short as to appear stupid to us ; but in 



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