312 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



arrangement of very considerable data are, to our mind, 

 already within actual grasp. In concluding this part of my 

 address, I will only further quote a few sentences of Dr 

 Andrew Wilson, Dr Carpenter, and Sir John Lubbock, and 

 endeavour to place upon some sort of footing the present 

 state of knowledge— -or of hypothesis — regarding the former 

 of these phenomena, which may, and doubtless will, act as a 

 clue to others who are specially interested in the subject : — 



Dr Andrew Wilson said : " We know too little respecting 

 the so-called ' automatic ' powers and ways, even of higher 

 animals, to dogmatise regarding the acts of lower animals ; 

 but we may safely assume that one apparent ground of dis- 

 tinction between instinct and reason may be found in the 

 common incompetence of instinct to move out of the beaten 

 track of existence, and in the adaptation of reason, through 

 the teachings of experience, to new and unwonted circum- 

 stances." 



..." The highest instinctive powers," says Dr Carpenter, 

 " when carefully examined, are found to consist entirely in 

 movements of the excito-motor and sensori-motor kinds (^.e., 

 by impressions made on nervous centres, but without any 

 necessary emotion, reason, or consciousness)." 



Again^ says Dr A. Wilson, quoting Sir John Lubbock : 

 "The young ant, wasp, or bee will begin its labours, and 

 discharge them, as perfectly at the beginning of its existence 

 as a perfect insect at the close of life. Here there is no 

 experience, no tuition, no consciousness, no reason, and no 

 powers, save such as have been transferred to the insect as 

 a mere matter of heredity and derivation from its ancestors, 

 who lived by an unconscious rule of thumb, so to speak." 



The above appears to us, at present, after much vain hun- 

 gering after other ideal standards of a higher type, or lower 

 type, of instinct, to be the only explanation at present of the 

 marvellous regularity with which birds, and especially young 

 birds, find their passage over sea and land. The motive in- 

 stinct starts them on a journey, the destination of which they 

 know not ; the direction of the wind at the time guides their 

 instinct to fly in certain old worn channels, eyesight and 

 senses en route distinguish betwixt land and ocean, or map 



