178 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



frog, when, according to ordinary experience, the mind would 

 seem to have been removed. But take the case of a bird build- 

 ing its nest. This is said to be instinctive. If this means any- 

 thing, it means that the animal is fitted prior to experience, and 

 independently of all knowledge, to build its nest. It is created 

 from the start with a nest-building tendency, which is the soul so 

 to speak, of a nest-building mechanism, which at some peculiar 

 conjunction in its affairs impels and guides the bird, it knows not 

 how or why, to build the nest, which it is under the necessity of 

 building on account of the fixed conditions and modes of action 

 of its nest-building apparatus, and in a certain way and none 

 other. Hence the individual members of the same species will 

 build their nests after a peculiar pattern or of peculiar materials, 

 so much so, that it is enough for the observant naturalist simply 

 to see the nest, in many cases, to name the bird. But the case is, 

 or seems to be different, with the architect who plans and builds 

 a house, as every one knows. But let us look more closely at 

 this instinctive act of nest building. One thing is certain, there 

 must be d, plan somewhere, consciously or unconsciously followed, 

 for the nests of the same species are made alike, or after a common 

 type or plan. The only possible places (so to speak) in which 

 the plan can inhere, are either just in the mechanism or organism 

 of the bird itself, in which case it would have to be assumed that 

 it was constructed to work of itself, in the absence of a mind. It 

 would work then, for example, like a watch, or better yet, if you 

 please, like a pin or match machine, which is fitted to take the 

 raw material at one end, and give out at the other the finished 

 product. It cannot in the nature of its case make anything but 

 tacks. Any power which can set it in motion, no matter from 

 what source, may, through the agency of the mechanism, bring 

 about the result; or the plan may inhere in the mind of the ani- 

 mal, as well as the apparatus to which the mechanism corresponds. 

 Why should W3 deny the presence of mind, in a given case, be- 

 cause it works through an apparatus, even if the latter is auto- 

 matically perfect from the outset ? Can mind not work through 

 such mechanism as well as through one which for certain reasons 

 is imperfect at the start, and has to be developed by purposive 



