Reason and Instinct, 



6049 



and 1 see that it selects and adapts the appropriate means (that is, the 

 assimilable part of the vegetable congesta) to the proximate end, that 

 is, the growth or reproduction of the insect's body. This we call 

 vital power, or vita propria of the stomach, and this being the lowest 

 species its definition is the same with the definition of the kind. 

 Well ! from the power of the stomach I pass to the power exerted by 

 the whole animal: I trace it wandering from spot to spot, and plant 

 to plant, till it finds the appropriate vegetable ; and again, on this 

 chosen vegetable, I mark it seeking out and fixing on the part of the 

 plant — bark, leaf or petal — suited to its nourishment; or (should the 

 animal have assumed the butterfly form) to the deposition of its eggs 

 and the sustentation of the future larva. Here I see a power of se- 

 lecting and adapting means to proximate ends, according to circum- 

 stances; and this higher species of adaptive power we call Instinct. 

 Lastly, I reflect on the facts narrated and described in the preceding 

 extracts from Hiiber" (of bees supporting a tottering piece of comb 

 until effectually propped by pillars of wax, and ants constructing a 

 passage or tunnel to an under-ground chamber), " and see a power of 

 selecting and adapting the proper means to the proximate ends, ac- 

 cording to varying circumstances. And what shall we call this yet 

 higher species? We name the former Instinct; we must call this 

 Instinctive Intelligence. Here then we have three powers of the same 

 kind, life, instinct, and instinctive intelligence ; the essential charac- 

 ters that define the genus existing equally in all three." I pause here 

 for a moment, to ask, if this be so, ought not these three powers to be 

 severally termed Organic or Vegetative Instinct, Animal Instinct, and 

 InteUigent Instinct, rather than Life, Instinct, and Instinctive Intelli- 

 gence ? The author continues, " But in addition to these, I find one 

 other character common to the highest and lowest, viz. that the pur- 

 poses are all manifestly predetermined by the peculiar organization 

 of the animals; and though it may not be possible to discover any 

 such immediate dependency in all the actions, yet the actions being 

 determined by the purposes, the result is equivalent ; and bolJi the 

 actions and the purposes are all in a necessitated reference to the 

 preservation and continualion of the particular animal or the pro- 

 genyr—[Id. i. 190, 192.) 



1 have not space for lengthened comments on the foregoing, but I 

 must demur to the statements in the italicised portions. I do not 

 think that, as to very many recorded instances of brute intelligence, 

 these statements can be made wdth truth. They are not true as aj^- 

 plied to several of the few instances 1 adduced in my former pa])or on 



