10 INTRODUCTION. 



any one sense is common to the whole, unless it be feeling, and touch, or 

 taste, which is a kind of feeling. Observers have assigned a variety of 

 offices to the antennae where they are present. Though freely employed, 

 it is not evident that they discharge any known function which is fami- 

 liar to us. The faculty of vision, the senses of hearing and smelling are 

 still more vague and indefinite, we have little satisfactory means of ascer- 

 taining some of them. The tremor imparted to the medium of commu- 

 nication may readily induce erroneous conclusions. Some of the senses, 

 also, seem entirely wanting in a multitude of the lower animals, and in 

 numbers they are most obtuse and defective : they are apparently of least 

 avail when the greatest acuteness might have been expected. 



But such deficiencies are probably compensated by instinct, or that 

 quality where, by a kind of natural intuition, animals without experi- 

 ence enjoy a reasoning faculty, enabling them to determine on utilities 

 to themselves or their progeny. 



This singular property, lowest and latest seen in the human species, 

 is often demonstrated by the humbler tribes to an admirable extent. It 

 is always most prominent in the pursuit of food and shelter, and in pre- 

 paring for the benefit of the young, when its exercise both precedes their 

 existence and watches over their imbecility. 



What is it that teaches the bee to found the original cell of the 

 honey-comb, or the Amphitrite to commence that tube which shall afford 

 it perpetual shelter ; the spider to construct its web ; or a thousand others 

 to prepare for necessities or for safety. 



But there are some things which are unintelligible, and to us weak 

 mortals seemingly inconsistent with the benignity of Providence. 



Myriads of the young produced never reach any stage of maturity ; 

 they are abandoned to their fate by the parent from the moment of birth. 

 Thousands of animals, some the most valuable, appear to be created 

 only that they may become the prey of others. A war of extermination 

 is incessantly raging among the living world. Legions have vanished 

 from the surface of the earth, leaving no type behind them, nor aught, 

 unless some scattered relics, which may have lain undisturbed for thou- 

 sands of years. 





