THE PHILOSOPHY OF BIRDS NESTS 1 



Instinct or Reason in the Construction of Birds' Nests 



BIRDS, we are told, build their nests by instinct, while man 

 constructs his dwelling by the exercise of reason. Birds 

 never change, but continue to build for ever on the self-same 

 plan ; man alters and improves his houses continually. 

 Eeason advances ; instinct is stationary. 



This doctrine is so very general that it may almost be 

 said to be universally adopted. Men who agree on nothing 

 else accept this as a good explanation of the facts. Philo- 

 sophers and poets, metaphysicians and divines, naturalists 

 and the general public, not only agree in believing this to be 

 probable, but even adopt it as a sort of axiom that is so self- 

 evident as to need no proof, and use it as the very foundation 

 of their speculations on instinct and reason. A belief so 

 general, one would think, must rest on indisputable facts, 

 and be a logical deduction from them. Yet I have come to 

 the conclusion that not only is it very doubtful, but absolutely 

 erroneous ; that it not only deviates widely from the truth, 

 but is in almost every particular exactly opposed to it. I 

 believe, in short, that birds do not build their nests by 

 instinct ; that man does not construct his dwelling by reason ; 

 that birds do change and improve when affected by the same 

 causes that make men do so ; and that mankind neither alter 

 nor improve when they exist under conditions similar to 

 those which are almost universal among birds. 



1 First published in the Intellectual Observer, July 1867 ; reprinted in 

 Contributions, etc., with considerable alterations and additions ; and with 

 further additions in the present volume. 



