146 HUMBLE CREATURES. 



and the materials on whicli they are intended to ope- 

 rate, and, without any experience or tuition, proceed 

 at once to employ both organs and materials in a per- 

 fectly rational manner*. 



And now, having drawn attention to two essen- 

 tially different phases of instinct, the lower one purely 

 mechanical and ministering to the immediate na- 

 tural wants of the individual, and the higher in- 

 volving truly rational acts (such as in ourselves ne- 

 cessitate previous tuition and experience) that enable 

 the animal to provide not only for its own wants, 

 but for the necessities and welfare of its congeners ; 

 having selected these from amongst many progress- 

 ive phases of instinct, let us now pass that boundary 

 whereon so many naturalists have wandered life-long, 

 and, entering the province of reason, endeavour to 

 form some idea, however imperfect, of its distinguish- 

 ing attributes. 



We believe it to be the acknowledged theory of 

 physiologists in the present day, that the true rea- 

 soning faculty is immediately connected with the 

 possession of a brain; or, to be more precise, that 



* The simile of Rogers (page 13) is perhaps more appro- 

 priate than even he imagined ; and if we could follow the 

 mental as we can the physical development of the Bee through 

 the various stag-es of larva, pupa, and imago, we should proba- 

 bly derive from the study a valviable lesson bearing upon our 

 own psychical nature. There can be no doubt, that, in its 

 larval condition, the insect is collecting substance in prepara- 

 tion for its higher existence; and, in a figiu-ative sense, the 

 same remark applies to om-selves. 



