156 ANIMAL-SENTIENT FORCES. [i. 



furnish themselves with such instruments for self-preservation 

 as spiders, for example, which weave nets to take their food 

 more readily, or caterpillars, which spin a net around themselves 

 for the purpose of undergoing their transformations undisturbed, 

 &c., so also she has fitted out every animal with special instru- 

 ments (mechanical machines) for the other instincts of self- 

 defence and propagation of the species, which are partly 

 adapted to receive the sensational stimuli that excite these 

 instincts and partly subservient to the gratification of the 

 instincts, without the animal knowing their objects, or tlie 

 causes of the movements (266). The instruments appropriated 

 to the instinct of self-defence (262) are termed the natural 

 weapons of the animal, and each is provided with particular 

 kinds of weapons, adapted to avert its greatest and most pro- 

 bable dangers, and appropriate to the objects of nature in the 

 satisfying the instinct of self-defence. Thus, the soft animals, 

 which are easily crushed, are surrounded with hard shells ; 

 those which are appointed to be pursued and eaten by other 

 animals possess instruments whereby they can inflict as 

 much injury on their pursuers, as may be necessary to 

 check the pursuit ; teeth for biting, poisons, stings, talons for 

 wounding, hoofs for striking, claws for lacerating, &c. The 

 animals themselves are ignorant that they possess these weapons, 

 or, at least, of the object of nature in furnishing them (266). 

 They do not make use of them with a deliberate design, but 

 are impelled by their instinct to undertake blindly the other- 

 wise voluntary movements of the organs which are furnished 

 with weapons, whereby these become subservient to self defence 

 without the knowledge of the animal. Consequently, many 

 animals, when they find themselves in danger, make such 

 defensive movements, although their limbs are not yet supplied 

 with the weapons, or have lost them, and although the weapons 

 are useless against such dangers; they bite at a stone, they 

 sting at the air, they spurt out their poison without knowing 

 where, they strike at a thorn-bush or a wall, they even scratch 

 or bite themselves, &c. Now, since the instincts of self-defence 

 are really none other than instincts to voluntary movements 

 manifested in armed organs, they are subject to the same laws 

 as that class. {Vide §§ 283, 284.) 



