AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



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imagery or anticipated view of the intended act, wltli its 

 accompaniments, the darkness, the silence, &c. &c. — and 

 that when it really did begin to happen — when the man ac- 

 tually entered the room at midnight, the animal seized him 

 as described; — or in whatever way we regard it as having 

 been effected, the operation of an intellectual power is most 

 unequivocal. We cannot account for this cool and dispas- 

 sionate magnanimity, which renders the brute animal un- 

 mindful of itself, while extending its protection, and this 

 with discrimination of circumstances, to man, unless by a 

 directing energy, unseen by itself, acting upon its mind, 

 and disposing it to use its immediate conscious faculties in 

 operatingaccording to a particular dictate; the animal, as to 

 all its conscious faculties and bodily powers, being left in 

 perfect freedom, although thus overruled by a presiding 

 povver, of which it is totally unconscious. We cannot 

 otherwise account for the apparently complex nature of 

 brutes, " which," as beautifully observed by Addison, 

 "thus rises above reason, and falls infinitely short of it," 

 and which " cannot be accounted for by any properties of 

 matter, and at the same time works after so odd a manner, 

 that one cannot think it the faculty, (as regards the crea- 

 ture, he might have added) of an intellectual being." 



According to the view above taken, then, the brute, 

 within the sphere of its consciousness, is in perfect free- 

 dom; thus it is by no means an automaton, but gifted with 

 asubordinatefreedomof volition, discrimination and action, 

 beneath the moral and intellectual sphere by which it is 

 ruled and governed. 



The foregoing, however, it may perhaps be said, is an 

 extraordinar}' instance of the actions of instinct. In reply 

 to this, the question may be asked, — are not the most com- 

 mon and ordinarjr instances of instinctive action equally 

 illustrative of an intelligence superior to the conscious fa- 

 culties of the creature; which intelligence must, therefore, 

 operate upon its conscious perception, and constitute, as it 

 were, the primum mobile, actuating and impelling it to the 

 most reasonable and circumstantial course of action that can 

 be conceived, for arriving at the fulfilment of the ends for 

 which it is brought into existence? Does the spider, in the 

 curious act of weaving its web, think within itself, and 

 say, 'I will extend my threads in this order, and connect 

 and tie them together transversely, to secure my web from 

 the rude vibrationsof the air; and in theterminations which 

 constitute the central point of my web, I will provide 

 myself a seat, where I may sit and watch what happens, 

 and be ready to seize and envelope every fly that is caught 

 in my trap?' — Or does the bee reason and say to itself, ' I 

 will take my flight to such a field, where I know there is 

 plenty of flowers, and I will gather wax and honey from 

 them, and of the wax I will build contiguous cells in a par- 



ticular arrangement and form, and so disposed, that I and 

 my companions may have free ingress and egrees, and in 

 process of time may lay up a large store of honey, sufficient 

 for our necessities during the approaching winter, that we 

 may not starve; and I will help to support, like a good 

 citizen, the political and economical prudence of the com- 

 munity?' 



We cannot surely conceive any such process of reflection 

 as this to pervade the consciousness of the creatures, al- 

 though their acts evidently include it in some way or other; 

 and this I think amounts to a full proof, that reasoning is 

 in no case the effect of instinct, as bos been supposed by 

 some philosophers; for it determines that the voluntary 

 powers of animals, may be most forcibly directed to a par- 

 ticular course of action, without any reasonable perception, 

 either of the act or of its consequences, on the part of the 

 animals themselves; and shows that the instinct of anim.als 

 is governed by the influence of an intelligence, (acting in 

 this case according to an uniform mode or fixed law,) which 

 cannot be ascribed to the animals themselves; and which 

 evidently acts upon them above the sphere of their proper 

 consciousness. The same arguments are applicable to those 

 cases, in which animals appear to act more immediately 

 fi'om 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 in cages, or tied to the nest; in 

 which exigency, the old ones prolong their care, and con- 

 tinue to supply them with food beyond the accustomed pe- 

 riod.* It thus appears clearl}' evident, I think, that ani- 

 mals 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 perform- 

 ed ^o?' them, as it were, in evcrj^ instance in which they 

 appear to exhibit jiroofs of it; and that pi'operly speaking, 

 there is nothing of design attributable to brutes in their ac- 

 tions, but merely a subordinate voluntary principle, and 

 discriminative perception, which may be termed natural, to 

 distinguish it from what is moral, intellectual, and scienti- 



* A few years since a pair of sparrows which had built in Ihe thatch roof of a 

 house at Poole, were observed to continue theii" regular visits to the nest long 

 after the time when the young birds take fligltt. This unusual circumstance con- 

 tinued throughout the year; and in the winter, a gentleman 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 siring or worsted, which formed part of the nest, having become accidentally 

 twisted round its leg. Being thus incapacilaled for procuring its own subsistence, 

 it had been fed by the continued exertions of its parents. B, 



