THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



and one which, from the commonness of the ani- 

 mal, and its ready performance of its functions 

 under the microscope, is very easy to be attained. 

 It is impossible to witness the constructive 

 operations of the melicerta without being con- 

 vinced that it possesses mental faculties, at least 

 if we allow these to any animals below man. If, 

 when the chimpanzee weaves together the branches 

 of a tree to make himself a bed ; when the beaver, 

 in concert with his fellows, gnaws down the birch 

 saplings, and collects clay to form a dam; when 

 the martin brings together pellets of mud and 

 arranges them under our eaves into a hollow 

 receptacle for her eggs and young,— we do not 

 hesitate to recognise miiul— call it instinct, or rea- 

 son, or a combination of both,— how can we fail 

 to see that in the operations of the invisible ani- 

 malcule there are the workings of an immaterial 

 principle? There must be a power to judge of the 

 condition of its case, of the height to which it 

 must be carried, of the time when this must be 

 done; a will to commence and to go on, a will to 

 leave off, (for the ciliary current is entirely under 

 control) ; a consciousness of the readiness of the 

 pellet; an accurate estimate of the spot where it 

 needs to be deposited; (may 1 not say also, a 

 memory where the previous ones had been laid, 

 since the deposition does not go on in regular 

 succession, but now and then, yet so as to keep 

 the edge tolerably uniform in height?) ; and a will 

 to determine that there it shall be put. But 

 surely these are mental powers. Yet mind ani- 

 mating an atom so small that your eyes strained 

 to the utmost can only just discern the speck in 

 the most favourable circumstances, as when you 

 hold the glass which contains it between your eye 

 and the light, so that the ray shall illumine the 

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