DR. VIREY ON INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE. 55 



Almost all the metaphysicians, indeed, who have treated on the 

 instinctive faculties, have erred on this point ; having chiefly studied 

 man, whose actions and passions are always in some degree under the 

 influence of reason, they have readily concluded that instinct is a 

 devious branch of intelligence, a species of human thought more or Jess 

 perfected in brutes. Cabanis often employs the singular term instinc- 

 tive habits. This error is derived from Condillac, and is very remark- 

 able as to this subject, U Instinct," says the latter, " is the com- 

 mencement of knowledge, or habit without reflection, or it is nothing." 

 — {Traiie des Animaux, part ii. chap, v.) — Now, I would ask him, 

 what can be the beginning of knowledge? What will be the habit of 

 those solitary wasps, which, depositing their egg in a hole made by 

 themselves in wood, and putting therein provision for the future 

 maggot, close the hole and die *. The maggot produced in this cell, 

 alone, and excluded from the light, pierces the wall of the prison ; 

 emerges into day ; then, transformed into a wasp, it seeks a companion, 

 chooses the nectar of such flowers as are necessary for its food, then 

 pierces in its turn a hole in the wood, in which to deposit its egg, car- 

 ries thither the caterpillars which it only half kills, in order to leave the 

 food still fresh for the maggots hatched from its eggs : in fine, it acts 

 precisely as its parent had done, without having known her, without 

 having acquired any habit or science whatever. 



There are besides, animals without heads, the polypus, the muscle, 

 plant du byssons> which are equally possessed of instinct ; the sea 

 urchin {Echinus, Linn^us) and others, have no brain, and scarcely 

 can the trace of nerves be observed in them ; they are at all times able 

 to walk, whether by the assistance of their spines, or by putting out 

 their membranous feet through the holes of their shell ; they seize their * 

 prey with these, and are enabled to eat by means of the five teeth in 

 their mouth. At the same time they must know how to direct the water 

 which fills and swells their feet ; they should have instinct to attach 

 themselves to the rocks by forming an air- hole of each tentaculum or 

 hand, and the art of defending themselves by erecting their spines 

 against the fish that would devour them. 



The mover of instinct is only the love of self, or the preservation of 

 the individual and its kind, a sentiment implanted in all organised 

 beings, and, among animals, regulated by pleasure and pain, which 

 inspires in them inclinations, aversions, and affections. Hence the 



* See some curious details observed at Lee, in " Insect Architecture," second edit, 

 p. 26. — Editor. 



