266 EDUCATION. 
Beasts are only machines, mechanical automata; or if we think 
we can detect in them some glimmering rays of sensibility and 
reason, those are solely the effect of imstenct. But what is instinct ? 
A sixth sense—I know not what—which is undefinable, which has 
been implanted in them, not acquired by themselves—a blind force 
which acts, constructs, and makes a thousand ingenious things, with- 
out their being conscious of them, without their personal activity 
counting for aught. 
If it is so, this instinct would be invariable, and its works immoy- 
ably regular, which neither time nor citcumstances would ever change. 
Indifferent minds—distracted, busy about other matters—which 
have no time for observation, accept this statement upon parole. 
Why not? At the first glance certain actions and also certain works 
of animals appear almost regular. To come to a different conclusion, 
more attention, perhaps, is needed, more time and study, than the 
question is fairly worth. 
Let us adjourn the dispute, and see the object itself. Let us 
take the humblest example, an individual example; let us appeal to 
our eyes, our own observation, such as each one of us can make with 
the most vulgar of the senses. 
Perhaps the reader will permit me here to introduce, in all 
honesty and simpleness, the journal of my canary, Jonquille, as it was 
written hour by hour from the birth of her first child; a journal of 
remarkable exactness, and, in short, an authentic register of birth. 
“Tt must be stated, at the outset, that Jonquille was born in a 
cage, and had not seen how nests were made. As soon as I saw her 
disturbed, and became aware of her approaching maternity, I frequently 
opened her door, and allowed her freedom to collect in the room the 
materials of the bed the little one would stand in need of. She gathered 
them up, indeed, but without knowing how to employ them. She 
put them together, and stored them in a corner of her cage. It was 
very evident that the art of construction was not innate in her, that 
(exactly like man) the bird does not know until it has learned. 
