CHAP. X. INSTINCT AND REASON. 287 



ciations last but for a season ; the caterpillar changes 

 to a moth, and the bond of their society is dissolved. 

 We have introduced these examples in this place, as 

 they serve to conduct us, by the most graduated steps, 

 to others which, in like manner, show the first develop- 

 ment of perfect societies, the subject which will next 

 engage our attention. 



CHAP. X. 



ON PERFECT SOCIETIES OP ANIMALS. 



(299-) WE have already intimated the different grada- 

 tions of animal society, and the nature of those distinc- 

 tions by which we arrange the social animals under two 

 great divisions ; we are now brought to consider those 

 which constitute, among themselves, perfect societies. 

 It is among these wonderful creatures that we trace a 

 degree of order, intelligence, and ingenuity, which has 

 baffled so many in drawing an unexceptionable difference 

 between reason and instinct. It is an extraordinary cirt. 

 cumstance, that the greatest development of this sort of 

 intelligence should be found in a division of the animal 

 kingdom, whose structure is totally different from that 

 of man the being to whom his Creator has given 

 the power of knowing himself; and who, consequently, 

 exhibits the highest development of intellectual endow- 

 ment in the creation. Of all creatures belonging to 

 the animal world, insects exhibit the nearest approach 

 to the reasoning powers of man : this fact, which the 

 following details render incontrovertible, is one out of 

 the many indirect evidences that man forms no part of 

 the animal kingdom. His great distinction his typical 

 perfection is REASON ; in other words, the highest 



