10 ^n Itiquiry respecting 



the sphere of their proper cu?isciousness. The same arguments 

 are appiicable to those cases, in which animals appear to act more 

 immediately from the exigency of circumstances, that in these also 

 they are similarly directed ; as in the case of the ostrich, an ap- 

 parently stupid bird, which, in Senegal, where the heat is great, 

 sits only by night when the coolness of the air would chill the 

 eggs ; and in the case of parent birds, when their nestlings are 

 confined iu cages, or tied to the nest ; in which exigency, the old 

 ones prolong their care, and continue to supply them with food, 

 beyond the accustomed period.* It thus appears clearly evident, 

 I think, that animals do not act with a view to consequences, from 

 their own proper consciousness; but that whenever they do so 

 act, it is from a dictating energy operating above the sphere of 

 their consciousness, and disposing them so to do : that the business 

 of mental analysis and extraction, is performed/or theni^ as it were, 

 ill every instance in which they api>ear to exhibit proofs of it; and 

 that properly speaking, there is nothing of design attributable to 

 brutes in their actions, but merely a subordinate voluntary princi- 

 j)le, and discrimir.ative perception, which muy be termed nulurul^ 

 Xo distirtguish it from what is moral, intelleci ual, and scieut/Jic ; to 

 Txhivh latter principles alone design can properly be referred. If 

 the appearances of design in the animals be taken as proofs of 

 such design being proper to them, we must be forced to admit 

 that they are possessed of moral, intellectaal, and scientific re- 

 flection ; but we might, upon this principle, argue the same thing 

 of the plant, which when placed in a cellar where but a partial 

 light is admitted, turns itself towards the ray ;— namely, that as 

 there is the appearance of design in the action, we must tlierefore 

 attribute design to the subject in which we perceive its effects, 

 and thus elevate the vegetable to the intellectual sphere: and we 

 should actually do this, did we not stop short to consider the 

 adequacy of (he apparent a^ent to the production of the effect as 

 we behold it performed. 



* A few years since a pair orspanows which had built in the thatch roof of 

 a house at Poole, were obsevved to continue their resjular visits to the nest long 

 after the time when the young birds take flight. This unusual circumstance 

 continued throughout the year ; and in the winter, a gentlemnn who had all 

 along observed"them, determined on investigating its cause. He therefore 

 mounted a ladder, and found one of the young ones detained a prisoner, by 

 means of a piece of string or worsted which formed part of the nest, having 

 become accidentally twisted round its leg. Being thus incapacitated for pro- 

 curing its own sustenance, it had been fed by the continned exertions of its 

 parents. B. 



