REASON AND INSTINCT. 217 



until overpowered by numbers. But the sole 

 defence of the timid hare lies in her speed ; that 

 overmatched or worn out, she falls a helpless 

 prey into the jaws of her enemies. We read of 

 warlocks and witches in the shape of hares, and 

 truly natural instinct has supplied them with 

 an almost reasoning power in the extraordinary 

 efforts they sometimes make to escape pursuit. 



It is as nice a point to determine where instinct 

 ceases and reasoning commences, with the brute 

 creation, as to mark out the exact limits to which 

 animal nature extends before verging into the 

 vegetable. It has often struck me that the sea 

 anemone partakes of both natures ; its horns, 

 which expand like a snail's in its natural element, 

 immediately contract on being touched by the 

 hand of man, and if severed rudely from its briny 

 rock it fades and dies. 



By instinct birds are taught to build nests, 

 fishes to seek spawning streams, and animals of 

 every kind to make provision for their wants, and 

 guard against their natural enemies. There may 

 be, and are most probably, some low gradations 

 or degrees of reasoning powers imparted to dumb 

 creatures, apparently httle removed from mind 

 or human intellect, and yet wanting in some of 

 its first essentials, which sanguine people are in- 



