368 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



Divine agency through the operations of unreasoning animals — 

 instances which fill the contemplative mind w ith the most pro- 

 found and pleasing admiration, and dispose it to the enjoyment 

 and the duty of heartfelt devotion. 



The migration of birds is another subject full of instruction re- 

 garding the great queslions connected with instinct, and is re- 

 served for the Appendix. Observation seems at variance with 

 the notion of the older birds teaching the yearlings ; indeed, the 

 two classes have been found not to travel together. But the agi- 

 tation universally observed in birds of passage kept in cages, at 

 the season of migration, proves clearly that no experience nor in- 

 struction will account for the change of place. See Mr. W. Her- 

 bert's excellent remarks on this instinct, and on the similar instincts 

 respecting choice of food, which makes birds bred in a cage at 

 once select their appointed food when shown them for the first 

 time. White's Selbourne, edit. 1833, p. 41, et seq. The facts 

 respecting carrier-pigeons and other animals finding their way- 

 through countries, in the knowledge of which they never could 

 have been trained, belong to the same class, and will be particu- 

 larly discussed in the Appendix — Dissertation upon Instinct. 



The doctrine of conflicting instincts will be considered under 

 the head of conflicting contrivances in the Dissertations upon Evil, 

 and adverted to in the Notes on the last Chapter. Such apparent 

 conflicts afford no ground whatever for the skeptical argument as 

 to design ; and they in no way strengthen the skeptical argument 

 drawn, and inaccurately drawn, from other sources, respecting 

 benevolence. 



