QUADRUPEDS. 



349 



tions, without any intentional adaptation of means to ends on 

 the part of the individual; although such adaptiveness doubt- 

 less exists in the actions themselves, being a consequence 

 of the original constitution of the nervous system of each 

 animal performing them. It cannot be doubted by any 

 person who has attentively studied the characters ot the 

 lower animals, that many of them possess psychical en- 

 dowments, corresponding with those which we term the 

 Intellectual powers and Moral feelings in Man ; but in 

 proportion as these are undeveloped, in that proportion is 

 the animal under the dominion of those instinctive im- 

 pulses, which, so far as its own consciousness is concerned, 

 may be designated as blind and aimless, but which are 

 ordained by the Creator for its protection from danger, 

 and for the supply of its natural wants. The same may 

 be said of the Human infant, or of the Idiot, in whom the 

 reasoning powers are undeveloped." * 



* "Princip. of Coinp. Physiol." (Ed. 1854), p. 693. — W 7 e cannot refrain from 

 quoting the same writer's interesting marginal note to the above passage : — 

 "The highest development of the purely instinctive tendencies, with the least 

 interference of intelligence, is to be found in the class of Insects ; and above 

 all in the oi'der ffymenoptera, and in that of Neuroptera, which is nearly allied 

 to it. It is, of course, impossible to draw the line between the two sources of 

 action wich complete precision ; but we observe, in the habits of Bees and other 

 social insects, every indication of the limitation of the power of choice, and of 

 the domination of instinctive propensities called into action by sensations. 

 Thus, although Bees display the greatest art in the construction of their habi- 

 tations, and execute a variety of curious contrivances beautifully adapted to 

 variations in their circumstances, the constancy with which individuals and 

 communities will act alike under the same conditions, appears to preclude the 

 idea of their possessing any inherent power of spontaneously departing from 

 the line of action to which they are tied down by the constitution of their nerv- 

 ous system. We do not find one individual or one community clever and an- 

 other stupid ; nor do we ever witness a disagreement or any appearance of in- 

 decision as to the course of action to be pursued by the several members of any 

 republic The actions of all tend to one common end, simply because they are 

 performed in.respondence to impulses which all alike-share. For a Bee to be 



