INSTINCT AND REASON. 93 
fortunately by no means always sufficiently careful to 
exclude spurious fancies, if they support a favoured 
theory. 
If building its nest were not a purely instinctive act, 
totally unaided by anything partaking of the character of 
Reason, we must indeed attribute to the race of Birds a very 
far more equable degree of Intelligence than falls to the lot 
of human beings. Are there no indolent birds who shirk 
their work? Are all without exception, equally in earnest, 
equally clever architects, and equally clever handicrattsmen? 
They should be (as indeed they are) under the theory of 
non-intelligence, but not under the opposite theory. For if 
they used thought in their work—if they learned the art of 
nest-building from their parents—their nests would infallibly 
differ more or less from their model, according to the capacity 
or industry of the individual bird, instead of being, as they 
are, not indeed identically alike, but all equally perfect, and 
equally characteristic in workmanship, and material, and 
situation, within the limits of legitimate and natural varia- 
tion. 
But the instances we have thus selected for ilustration 
are examples of pure instinct; and yet are also instances by 
no means the least complex of those actions which are well 
known to be performed by animals for whom there is claimed 
a certain measure of reason or intellectuality, such as differs 
from the Reason and Intelligence of Man in degree only. If, 
however, these typical acts of animals are the products, not 
of Reason, but of pure instinct, there can be but little 
question, upon that ground alone, that the acts of animals im 
the complex, when properly studied, and disengaged from 
the fallacious arguments which are used for elevating them 
to the heights of Reason, will be recognised as belonging 
also to the same category of instinctive actions as those 
already adduced. Mere instances of apparent Reason, or 
acts which simulate Reason, might be endlessly multiplied ; 
but when the true principle of Instinct is comprehended, and 
its essentially lower plane duly perceived, there can be 
no doubt in any unprejudiced mind that all such cases are 
merely varieties of manifestation of a wonderful faculty im- 
planted in animals, which is comprehensive and _ plastic 
enough to be adequate and sufficient for all their material 
needs by its perfect adaptation to their sensuous life, and at 
the same time so complex in its modes of action as to 
embrace the whole series of those mental phenomena which 
excite the astonishment of the mental evolutionist, who is 
