INSTINCT. 387 



thesis ' of the most perfect sort, needing no proof but ita 

 own evidence. It takes, in short, what Berkeley calls a 

 mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making 

 the natural seem strange, so far as to ask for the why of any 

 instinctive human act. To the metaphysician alone can 

 such questions occur as : Why do we smile, when pleased, 

 and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd 

 as we talk to a single friend? Why does a particular 

 maiden turn our wits so upside-down ? The common man 

 can only say, " Of course we smile, of course our heart pal- 

 pitates at the sight of the crowd, of course we love the maiden, 

 that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably 

 and flagrantly made from all eternity to be loved !" 



And so, probably, does each animal feel about the par- 

 ticular things it tends to do in presence of particular ob- 

 jects. They, too, are a priori syntheses. To the lion it is 

 the lioness which is made to be loved ; to the bear, the she- 

 bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem 

 monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to 

 whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and 

 precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which 

 it is to her,* 



Thus we may be sure that, however mysterious some 

 animals' instincts may appear to us, our instincts will appear 

 no less mysterious to them. And we may conclude that, to 

 the animal which obeys it, every impulse and every step of 

 every instinct shines with its own sufficient light, and seems 

 at the moment the only eternally right and proper thing to 

 do. It is done for its own sake exclusively. What volup- 



* "It would be very simple-minded to suppose that bees follow their 

 qxieen, and protect her and care for her, because they are aware that with- 

 out her the hive would become extinct. The odor or the aspect of their 

 queen is manifestly agreeable to the bees— that is why they love her so. 

 Does not all true love base itself on agreeable perceptions much more than 

 on representations of utility ?" (G. H. Schneider, Der Thierische Wille, 

 p. 187.) A priori, there is no reason to suppose that ani/ sensation might not 

 in some animal cause ani/ emotion and any impulse. To us it seems un- 

 natural that an odor should directly excite anger or fear; or a color, lust. 

 Yet there are creatures to which some smells are quite as frightful as any 

 Bounds, and very likely others to which color is as much a sexual irritant 

 as form. 



