PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 47 



in summer and to utilize furs in winter. Tiiey sing hymns to 

 the Great Spirit. Express joy & sorrow." He then makes his 

 application: 



All these Actions & movements ... we observe in the Animal 

 Creation likewise, which we call Instinct in them or a Divine Intuitive 

 knowledge but can't confess it to be Reason or Intelligence, because 

 forsooth it will detract from the Dignity of Human Nature. . . .^^ 



Conceding that animals cannot always do the things that man 

 can do, such, for instance, as weaving brocade and building 

 ships and watches, Bartram observes that many animals exceed 

 man in ingenuity. No man can make a spider's web, a honey- 

 comb with wax and honey, or a sea sponge. " A man alone," 

 he remarks, " cannot make a living animal indued with a nature 

 or powers of reproduction. He can at most only work upon or 

 modify matter already created to his hand. And so can most 

 other animals in some degree or other. . . . " ^* In his parallel 

 between animals and man he goes so far as to claim the posses- 

 sion of language by animals. They tutor their young. They use 

 sounds and words. Birds have a universal language. "Now," he 

 concludes, " if Animals have a vocal Language, it is self-evident 

 that they have Intelligence, they have Ideas & Understanding." ^^ 



His statement that birds have a "universal language" is 

 elaborated in his Introduction to the Travels: 



Birds are in general social and benevolent creatures; intelligent, 

 ingenious, volatile, active beings: and this order of animal creation 

 consists of various nations, bands, or tribes, as may be observed from 

 their different structure, manners, and languages, or voice; each nation, 

 though subdivided into many different tribes, retaining its general 

 form or structure, a similarity of customs, and a sort of dialect or 

 language, particular to that nation or genus from which those tribes 

 seem to have descended or separated. What I mean by a language in 

 birds, is the common notes or speech, that they use when employed in 

 feeding themselves and their young, calling on one another, as well 

 as their menaces against their enemy; for their songs seem to be musical 

 compositions, performed only by the males, about the time of incuba- 

 tion, in part to divert and amuse the female. . . . This harmony, with 

 the tender solicitude of the male, alleviates the toils, cares and dis- 

 tresses of the female, consoles her in solitary retirement whilst setting 



'" Bartram Papers, I; Bartram 's italics. '* Ibid. "Ibid. 



