102 SUPPLEMENT ON 



instinct. The perfection, therefore, of this quality seems to 

 be an appendage to the organization of the animal and not 

 the result. The beaver, though more industrious than the 

 carnivorous mammalia, is yet much below them as to organi- 

 zation. But, in truth, all the attempts which have been 

 made to discover or conjecture the cause of instinct have 

 been utterly vain and unsatisfactory. To notice the many 

 absurd and even unintelligible theories which have been ad- 

 vanced by otherwise clever men on this subject, would be to 

 waste the time and weary the patience of our readers. It is 

 sufficient to observe that they are all mere assumptions, with- 

 out a shadow of proof, or like that one which refers the in- 

 stincts of insects to their sensations, little better than identi- 

 cal propositions. As to the doctrine that instinct is the result 

 of the immediate inspiration of the Deity, that is sufficiently 

 refuted by the fact that it is sometimes found to be at fault. 

 That it is identical with reason is a proposition equally im- 

 tenable, for it is exercised with the same facility and perfec- 

 tion by the insect just disclosed from the pupa as by the 

 oldest. But the opinion of Mr. Spence on this subject so 

 completely coincides with our own, and is expressed so much 

 better than we could hope to express it, that we shall give it 

 in his own language. 



" Instinct then is not the result of a plastic nature; of a 

 system of machinery ; of diseased bodily action ; of models 

 impressed upon the brain ; nor of organic shootings-out : — it 

 is not the effect of the habitual determination for ages of the 

 nervous fluid to certain organs ; nor is it either the impulse 

 of the Deity or reason. Without pretending to give a logi- 

 cal definition of it, which while we are ignorant of the essence 

 of reason is impossible, we may call the instincts of animals 

 those unknown faculties implanted in their constitution by 

 the Creator, by which, independent of instruction, observa- 

 tion, or experience, and without a knowledge of the end in 



