INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE. 



1. IN contemplating the habits and manners of animals, numerous 

 acts are observed bearing marks of more intelligence and foresight 

 than it is possible to suppose such agents to exercise. Since 

 intelligence, therefore, cannot be admitted as the exciting cause 

 for such actions, they have been ascribed to another power, 

 called INSTINCT, which is denned to be one by which, independent 

 of all instruction or experience, animals are unerringly directed to- 

 do spontaneously whatever is necessary for their preservation and 

 the continuance of their species. 



2. Instinct, therefore, must be regarded as a simple power or 

 disposition emanating directly from the Creator, and producing its 

 effects, without the intervention of any mental process. These 

 effects, moreover, are susceptible of no modification by experience 

 or repetition. A purely instinctive act is performed with as much 

 facility and perfection at the first attempt as after repetition, no 

 matter how long continued. The new-born infant seizes the 

 mother's breast with its lips, draws the milk from it, and swallows 

 that nourishing fluid a very complicated physical process as- 

 readily and as perfectly as it does after the daily experience and 

 practice of ten or twelve months. The young bee just emerged 

 from the cell, sets about the highly geometrical process of con- 

 structing its complicated hexagonal comb, and accomplishes its 

 work with as much facility and perfection as the oldest inhabitant 

 of the hive. 



3. Instinct operates sometimes, but not invariably, by the 

 intervention of physical appetite. Thus animals seek food, 

 and the union of the sexes, not with the purposes which Nature 

 designs to attain by these acts, but for the mere pleasure 

 attending the gratification of appetite and passion. This 

 pleasure is the bait which the Creator throws out to allure them 

 to do what is indispensable for the preservation of the individual 

 and the continuance .of the species. 



Thus, although animals seek food to satisfy hunger, the act is 

 still instinctive. In the choice of food, that which is hurtful or 

 poisonous is avoided, and that which is nutritious selected. The 

 food which is suitable to the organs of digestion is always that to 

 which the animal directs itself. These organs in some are adapted 

 to vegetable, in others to animal food, and each species accordingly 

 seeks the one or the other. Since it cannot be imagined that these 

 animals are endowed with intelligence by which they are enabled 

 to judge of the qualities of this or that species of aliment, it is. 

 clearly necessary to ascribe their acts in choosing always those 

 which are suitable to them, to a power different from and 

 independent of intelligence. 



4. While instinct is a simple power, prompting acts apparently 

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