350 



LIFE, IN ITS HIGHER FORMS. 



Instinct has been defined* as a natural impulse to cer- 

 tain actions which animals perform without deliberation, 

 and without having any end in view, and without knowing 

 why they do them. It differs from intellect by the uner- 

 ring certainty of the means it employs, the uniformity of 

 its results, and the perfection of its works prior to, and in- 

 dependent of, all instruction or experience; and lastly, by 

 the pursuit of nothing beyond what conduces directly 

 either to the continuation of the individual or the propa- 

 gation of the kind. But the arts of rational creatures pro- 

 ceed slowly through diversified and oft-repeated experi- 

 ments, while the means they employ are always various, 

 and seldom the best and most appropriated 



Assuming the correctness of this diagnosis, let us ex- 

 amine the source of the actions recorded in the following- 

 anecdotes : — 



" The battering-train going to the siege of Seringapatam 

 had to cross the sandy bed of a river that resembled other 

 l ivers of the Peninsula, which leave, during the dry season, 

 but a small stream of water running through them, though 

 their beds are mostly of considerable breadth, very heavy 

 for draught, and abounding in quicksands. It happened 

 that an artilleryman, who w T as seated on the tumbril of 

 one of the guns, by some accident fell off, in such a situa- 



destitute of its peculiar tendency to build at certain angles, would be as re- 

 markable as for a human being to be destitute of the desire to eat when his 

 system should require food. Still the author would by no means maintain that 

 there are, even among Bees, no manifestations of intelligence ; for a careful 

 study of their habits shews that they do profit by experience, in a manner 

 that shews a certain amount of educability. And this faculty may not impro- 

 bably be connected with the presence of a rudimentary cerebrum, which is 

 capable of being distinguished from the sensorial centres that constitute the 

 principal part of their cephalic ganglia."— Ibid. p. 694. 



* Beattie, "Mor. Sci." I. ii. § 8. f " Penny Cyclop." xii. 497. 



