INSTINCTS. 209 



together, they do not meet to confer upon ih^ expediency ol 

 perpetuating their species. As an abstract proposition, they 

 care not the vahie of a barley-corn whether the species bo 

 perpetuated or not : they follow their sensations, and all 

 those consequences ensue which the wisest counsels could 

 have dictated, which the most solicitous care of futurity, 

 which the most anxious concern for the sparrow- world could 

 have produced. But how do these consequences ensue ? 

 riie sensations, and the constitution upon which they de- 

 pend, are as manifestly directed to the purpose which we 

 see fulfilled by them ; and the train of intermediate effects 

 as manifestly laid and planned with a view to that purpose ; 

 tliat is to say, design is as completely evinced by the phe- 

 nomena, as it would be even if we suppose the operations 

 to begin or to be carried on from what some will allow to 

 be alone properly called instincts, that is, from desires direct- 

 ed to a future end, and having no accomplishment or grati- 

 fication distinct from the attainment of that end. 



In a word, I should say to the patrons of this opinion, 

 Be it so ; be it that those actions of animals which we refer 

 to instinct are not gone about with any view to their conse- 

 quences, but that they are attended in the animal with a 

 present gratification, and are pursued for the sake of that 

 gratification alone ; what does all this prove, but that the 

 'prospectio7i, which must be somewhere, is not in the ani- 

 mal, but in the Creator? 



In treating of the parental aHection in brutes, our busi- 

 ness lies rather with the origin of the principle, than with 

 the effects and expressions of it. Writers recount these with 

 pleasure and admiration. The conduct of many kinds ol 

 animals towards their young has escaped no observer, no 

 iiistorian of nature. " How will they caress them," says 

 Derham, " with their affectionate notes ; lull and quiet them 

 with their tender parental voice ; put food into their mouths ; 

 cherish and keep them warm ; teach them to pick, and eat, 

 and gather food for themselves ; and, in a word, perform the 



