PERCEPTIONS OF ANIMALS. f073 



can we figure to ourselves the sensitive exist- 

 ence of the worm or the insect, organized in so 

 different a manner to ourselves, and occupying 

 so remote a region in the expanse of creation? 

 How can we venture to speculate on the percep- 

 tions of the animalcule, whose world is a drop of 

 fluid, and whose fleeting existence, chequered 

 perhaps by various transformations, is destined 

 to run its course in a few hours ? 



Confining our inquiries, then, to the more in- 

 telligible intellectual phenomena displayed by 

 the higher animals, we readily trace a gradation 

 which corresponds with the developement of the 

 central nervous organ, or brain. That the com- 

 parison may be fairly made, however, it is neces- 

 sary to distinguish those actions which are the 

 result of the exercise of the intellectual faculties, 

 from those which are called instinctive, and are 

 referable to other sources. Innumerable are the 

 occasions in which the actions of animals appear 

 to be guided by a degree of sagacity not deriv- 

 able from experience, and apparently implying 

 a fore-knowledge of events, which neither ex- 

 perience nor reflection could have led them to 

 anticipate. We cannot sufficiently admire the 

 provident care displayed by nature in the pre- 

 servation both of the individual and of the spe- 

 cies, which she has entrusted, not to the slow 

 and uncertain calculations of prudence, but to 

 innate faculties, prompting, by an unerring im- 



