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KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 

the lower and more instinctive animals, the 
brain is merely one of the ganglions, and 
supplies nerves to the eyes and mouth, and 
neighboring regions; whilst, for the chest 
and abdomen, other ganglions are supplied, 
which furnish their own respective depart- 
ments with the requisite amount of nervous 
fibre. In articulated animals, which consist 
of a series of rings, like caterpillars, each 
ring has its own ganglion, or ganglia. This 
explains the fact of the tenacity with which 
these animals cling to life, and seem even 
to possess more lives than one, when cut 
into two or more parts. With them the 
brain is divided and distributed over the body, 
and the vitality accordingly; and each 
division being a little independent brain, the 
animal constitutes a republic of lives, instead 
of one combined and united monarchy. 
The instinct of animals thus organised, is 
beyond the understanding of human reason; 
but their intellect is so small as to be inap- 
preciable or undiscoverable. There is there- 
fore, as M. Agassiz has well remarked, ‘a 
certain antagonism between instinct and 
intelligence ; so that instinct loses its force 
and peculiar character whenever intelligence 
becomes developed.” 
The difficulty which reason experiences in 
understanding the movements of instinct, 
would be quite sufficient for sceptical philo- 
sophers to deny its existence, were the 
evidences not as palpable and undeniable as 
the thing itself is incomprehensible. There 
is a little spider called the water-spider, 
which actually constructs a diving-bell; not 
only upon the most scientific principles, but 
in so mysterious and recondite a manner 
that natural philosophers have not even yet 
discovered the secret of its patent. This 
diving-bell is a little cylinder lined with silk, 
and fastened with threads on every side to 
the water-plants. It is open only below, so 
that the spider has to dive under the water 
before it can get into it. But when it is in, 
how can it live unless there be air? It 
solves this difficulty in a manner that puzzles 
the philosophers. It carries down, round 
its body, a bubble of air, and lets it escape 
at the mouth of the bell; the air ascends to 
the top of the bell, and displaces a quantity 
of water equal to its own bulk. The spider 
goes on diving with these air-bubbles, until 
it has filled the diving-bell with air; and, 
being now furnished with an atmosphere, 
and secure from all molestation from with- 
out, it rejoices in the seclusion of its own 
domestic retirement. 
How does this little creature discover this 
intricate and ingenious process of house- 
building, so far beyond the inventive powers 
of man himself? No doubt it is furnished 
with an apparatus for carrying this air- 
bubble, and with power to force itself under 
the water with air-bladders around it; but 
how it comprehends the manner of using the 
apparatus, shaping the bell, fastening it, 
making its opening in the water, instead of 
in the air, and then filling it with an in- 
visible gas, is a problem difficult of solution. 
Kepler, the great astronomer, was so 
thoroughly perplexed with the problem of 
animal instinct, that he came to the con- 
clusion that animals were automatons,— 
mere machines, which seemed conscious of 
existence, but in reality were not ; and Addi- 
son, in his Spectator, almost maintains the 
supposition that “God is the soul of the 
brute creation.” 
The industry and ingenuity of mason-bees, 
mining-bees, carpenter-bees, and wasps— 
upholsterer, carder, lapidary, and humbie- 
bees, and social wasps—the carpentry of 
tree-hoppers and saw-flies—the ingenuity of 
leaf-rolling, nest-building, carpenter and 
tent-making, and stone-mason caterpillars— 
the extraordinary architecture of ants of 
every description—the galleries which they 
excavate in trees, the towers which they 
build, the government which they organise, 
their military establishments, their nurseries, 
and their ‘‘ maiden ants,” or females exclu- 
sively set apart for superintending the nurture 
and admonition of the young—the infinite 
variety of modes of industry exhibited by 
worms, moths, and spiders, and many other 
classes of articulated animals, are all so 
many illustrations of the wonders of instinct 
in contra-distinction to reason, or intelligence 
derived from experience. 
Man acquires his wisdom by labor and 
research, and by treasuring up the facts of 
a long series of observations transmitted by 
tradition, and written records, from father to 
son, and from generation to generation. 
But these instinctive animals are born with 
the fully-developed wisdom of their own 
respective species. They transmit no ex- 
perience from one generation to another ; 
they communicate no new discoveries to 
each other; for they never make them. 
They have the power of adapting themselves 
to circumstances ; but in like circumstances 
they act alike, and one generation is the fac- 
simile of all the generations that preceded 
it. Whatever reason they have is, there- 
fore, inappreciably small ; and it is apparently 
only the result of an extraordinary effort of 
instinct in very difficult and exciting pre- 
dicaments. Their normal condition is that 
of routine—a law of perfect regularity and 
conservatism, in which reason becomes un- 
necessary. So that the circumstances that 
call forth the exercise of reasonin instinctive 
animals, are circumstances of misfortune, 
in which their houses are demolished, their 
plans are thwarted, and the even tenor of 
their industry becomes impracticable. 
