
KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
The happiness of an ant or a bee consists 
in the uninterrupted exercise of its instinc- 
tive faculties. No better fortune can befall 
it than such a constant flow of that orderly 
routine which characterises all its favorite 
movements, that nothing like what man is 
pleased to denominate rationality shall ever 
be required of it. The apparent develop- 
ment of reason in such a creature, is the 
result of an agony or an irresistible unpre- 
cedented attraction. Its laws are not made 
by itself, like those of man; but made for 
it. Itis a denizen of Nature; its obedience 
to Nature’s laws is voluntary and cheerful ; 
and it is only when the action of these laws 
is interrupted by violence or restraint, that 
it makes use of a seeming reason to 
re-establish it. The law of Nature once 
restored, the apparent reason ceases to 
manifest itself, and instinct once more 
resumes its unvarying and delightful routine. 
How very different man is from these 
instinctive animals! Man is ever changing ; 
they are not. And yet there are men— 
races of men—who seem to personify the 
principle of instinct, in comparison with 
others who personify reason. We see the 
routine of instinct in Oriental and savage 
life—the reign of conservatism and pre- 
cedent, use and wont, custom and _ habit. 
Man is alittle world, and has the type of 
everything in himself. The most instinc- 
tive of all organised human associations are 
those of China and Japan. There, men live 
together a life of unchanging mannerism ; 
indifferent to what is taking place in the 
world around them—as incurious of neigh- 
boring regions as a community of ants, and 
as exclusively engaged in their own limited 
nationality ; exercising their inventive genius 
only when difficulty or aggression and in- 
vasion compel them, and desiring nothing 
better than to be let alone to live a life of 
unvaried uniformity, established and un- 
changeable science, unimproved and unim- 
proveable art, irreversible customs, and 
unalterable habits. To develop the reason 
of such a race of men, and elevate them 
above their inferior or instinctive condition, 
you must treat them as you would a com- 
munity of ants when you want to be witness 
of their intellectual resources. They must 
be assailed by force or internal confusion— 
their law of order must be reversed— anarchy 
must reign for a season—that faculties, 
hitherto unemployed, may be brought into 
play. 
Whether the Chinese and Japanese—who 
are instinctive races of men—can ever be 
made to act upon the progressive principle, 
like the men of the West, is a question not 
easily answered. Like instinctive animals, 
their history reveals no progress made in the 
arts of life and association since the earliest 




141 

antiquity. They always were, like the ants 
and the bees, just what they are; they had 
no savage aud barbarous ancestors, painted 
with ochre and dressed in skins of slaughtered 
animals, as we had. ‘Lhey were, so far as 
human testimony goes, created as they are; 
inspired at first with the civilisation which 
they now possess; and either unable or un- 
willing to change it. But whether this be 
strictly correct or not, in reference to 
Oriental nations, it is relatively so when 
compared with the Western, amongst whom 
the principle of reason has been developed 
in such a manner as to establish an incom- 
patible dissimilarity of character between 
the two hemispheres. 
It would, however, be foolish for us to 
maintain that all the wisdom lies with reason, 
and the ignorance or the folly with instinct. 
On the contrary, the wisdom of instinct is, 
in some respects, perfect, and therefore 
Divine; whereas the wisdom of reason is 
merely human. To the bee and the ant, 
their normal condition is perfection. Such 
cannot be affirmed of any human political 
constitution ; for one of the most decisive 
proofs of imperfection in law is its mutability. 
A. Divine law is unchangeable, because it is 
perfect ; human laws are changeable, because 
they are imperfect. 
Let us add, that if the question were 
raised,which of the two gifts are preferable— 
instinet or reason, it would bea hard matter 
to decide the point. The “lower order” 
of animals are certainly “happy;’ and so 
far so good. But as “reason” does not 
make mankind by any means happy, asa 
matter of course, the question must remain 
open to further debate. 
He were a clever man indeed, who could 
set such a matter straight ! 
PRESSURE OF THE ATMOSPHERE. 

THE PressuRE OF THE ATMOSPHERE is known 
to pervade all space. It removes water, and may 
be so compressed as to remove the more substan- 
tial bodies. Some have even asserted ‘that, but 
for it, some parts of this globe would fly off into 
immeasurable space, and never return. Its 
effects on water, may be judged by the following 
experiment :—Take a tall drinking glass, at the 
edges whereof is fastened, by means of sealing- 
wax, a piece of string made tight, and having in 
its centre a lighted wax taper. This being 
balanced, so as to retain its position when the 
glass is turned upside down, place its mouth in a 
vessel filled with water; as the taper consumes 
the air within the glass, its pressure is withdrawn ; 
but the pressure from without still continuing, 
will force part of the water up into the glass to 
supply the place of the air which the taper has 
consumed. 
It must be evident, that nothing but the pres- 
sure of the atmosphere could thus cause the water 
within the glass to rise above its own level. 


