May 25, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



495 



power totally independent of organisation ; " " power 

 enabling an animal to do that which (in things man can 

 do) results from a chain of reasoning, and in things which 

 man cannot do, is not to be explained by any effort of the 

 intellectual faculties. G. H. Schneider writes : " By 

 instinct we understand the impulse to an action, the 

 purpose of which is unknown to the individual, but which 

 still leads to such purpose." 



Professor von Hartmann defines instinct as " purposive 

 action without consciousness of the purpose. 



Mr. A. R. Wallace explains it as " the performance by 

 an animal of complex acts, absolutely without instruction 

 or previously acquired knowledge." 



Darwin declined attempting any definition of instinct, 

 but he remarks : — " Every one understands what is 

 meant when it is said that instinct impels the cuckoo to 

 migrate, or to lay her eggs in other birds' nests. An action 

 which we ourselves require experience to enable us to 

 perform, when performed by an animal is usually said 

 to be instinctive." 



Lastly Mr. Herbert Spencer hits the mark best when 

 he considers instincts as "organised and inherited habits," 

 and again as " compound reflex actions." 



The faculty which prompts to instinctive actions is 

 admitted to be mental, nor can we conceive of it as 

 otherwise without we regard animals as automatons. 

 One of the definitions above quoted ascribes to them the 

 power of performing actions such as in man result from 

 a chain of reasoning. If then, certain actions in man are 

 due to a chain of reasoning, why do we not ascribe the 

 same or analogous actions in the lower animals to the 

 same source ? To do otherwise, to seek for some 

 unknown and mysterious faculty in order to explain what 

 may obviously be due to reason, is a transgression against 

 the first and second of Newton's " rules of philosophising." 



We must remember that many naturalists and philoso- 

 phers, whilst recognising " instinct " as one of the 

 faculties of the lower animals, have by no means par- 

 ticipated in the vulgar error which denies them the 

 possession of reason. Thus Cuvier held that instinct and 

 intelligence are in an inverse ratio to each other, the 

 higher any animal the fewer and the simpler being its 

 instincts. This is the assertion of a gradation where 

 popular prejudice erects an abrupt barrier. He even 

 says of the brutes, " Leiir intelligence execute des operations 

 du meme genre" i.e., as those of man. His brother 

 Frederic, keeper of the Zoological Department in the 

 Jardin des Plantes, was led, by his careful and prolonged 

 observations, to similar views. Cicero ascribed to the 

 ant, "mind, reason, and memory." Agassiz held that it 

 is impracticable to draw any definite boundary between 

 the faculties of a young child and those of a young 

 chimpanzee. 



By these selections, to which many more might be 

 added, we seek to show that reason and instinct are not 

 necessarily considered as antithetical and mutually 

 exclusive. But some brutes are observed, or at least 

 are supposed, to do things which man cannot perform, 

 and does not know how to set about. For the expla- 

 nation of such cases "instinct" might be provisionally 

 invoked by sober thinkers as an unknown power. 

 (To be continued .) 



Obituary. — The celebrated optician Josef Zentmayer, 

 of Philadelphia, died on March 28th, at the close of his j 

 sixty-third year. j 



Precautions in Introducing the Electric Light. By Killing- 

 worth Hedges. London : E. and F. N. Spon. 1886. 



We recently noticed an excellently got up book by 

 Fein, which seemed at first to be a manufacturer's cata- 

 logue, but which, on examination, was found to contain 

 no allusion whatever to prices. The book before us is 

 of an exactly opposite character. It appears at first sight 

 to be a handbook on the electric light, but it turns out to 

 be a description of the appliances sold by an electrical 

 and engineering company ; and more than a quarter of 

 its contents are occupied by a price-list. A book on elec- 

 trical appliances written or compiled in 1886 must neces- 

 sarily be somewhat out of date at the present time ; but 

 this is no excuse for illustrating as specimens of lamp- 

 holders the two oldest patterns that were ever placed on 

 the market, especially when the very apparent and well- 

 known disadvantages of one of them are fully set forth on 

 page 29. In a book, if book it may be called, dealing in 

 such a marked way with prices, it is surprising to find 

 the statement that " silver has the highest conductivity of 

 all metals, and, if the price continues to dechne, it is 

 within the bounds of possibility that it may be used for 

 winding dynamos." The resistance of copper is only 

 four per cent, less than that of silver ; the former is a 

 little more than 8|d. per lb.; the latter is a little less 

 than ^2 1 6s. od. per lb. ; and the suggestion is little else 

 than nonsense. 



In a glossary of technical terms we find several rather 

 questionable definitions. " Magnetism : a condition of 

 electrical action which can be highly developed in iron 

 and steel." " Power [P.] : The rate of doing work when 

 an ampere passes through an ohm. The unit is the 

 Watt." The illustrations also contrast strongly with the 

 German book to which we have alluded. The only fairly 

 good ones are borrowed, together with a considerable 

 quantity of matter, from the catalogues of other firms for 

 whom the company are apparently agents. There is a 

 want for a thoroughly reliable handbook on the subject, 

 and, with careful revision, excision of price list, and 

 brief descriptions of other manufactures than those of one- 

 firm only, the author, who has produced several brochures, 

 might supply it. 



Catdlogo de los Coleopteros de Chile, por Federico Philippi. 

 (De los ^4«a/?s de la Universidad de Chile. Tome 

 Ixxi. Santiago de Chile : Imprenta Nacional.) 

 We are indebted to the courtesy of the author for this- 

 interesting publication. A catalogueof the 2,254 species 

 of Coleoptera hitherto recognised in Chile may, at first 

 sight, seem very dull and dry. But to the student of 

 animal geography such documents are most valuable 

 materials for a discussion of the laws of animal distri- 

 bution. 



We might naturally expect that the insects of Chile would 

 be a selection of South American forms, such, namely, as 

 were capable of existing in cooler and more arid climates 

 than those of Brazil or Venezuela. Such, in fact, is, to 

 a great extent, the case. But along with the character- 

 istic Neotropical species we find a number which appear 

 to have spread along the Andes, and to be closely allied 

 with the forms of the north temperate zone. Thus we 

 find here Tetracha Carolina, which is found in various 

 parts of the United States. Pterostichus, Platysoma, 

 Steropus, and Dromius, genera common in Europe, have 

 each species in Chile. In this we encounter little diffi- 



