INSTINCT, SENSATION, AND INTELLIGENCE. 



251 



remains torpid ever}^ alternate year, and sometimes continues in tiiis state 

 for two years together. without putting forth either leaf or fibre. 



Let us close these observations with a momentary glance at the very 

 singular instinctive powers of the cancer ruricola^ or land-crab. This is 

 an inhabitant of the tropical regions, and especially of the Bahama islands : 

 it is gregarious, and associates in large bodies that preserve an orderly so* 

 ciety, for the most part, in the recesses of inland mountains, though they 

 regularly once a year march down to the sea-side in an army of some 

 millions, to deposite their spawn in the ocean. The time selected for this 

 expedition is usually in the month of May, when they sally forth from the 

 stumps of hollow trees, the clefts of rocks, and subterranean burrows, in 

 enormous multitudes. The whole ground, indeed, is covered with this 

 reptile band of adventurers ; and no geor^etrician could direct them to 

 their destined station by a shorter course. They turn neither to the right 

 hand nor to the left, whatever be the obstacles that intervene ; and if they 

 meet with a house they will rather attempt to scale the walls than relin- 

 quish the unbroken tenor of their way. Occasionally, however, they arc 

 obliged to conform to the face of the country ; and if it be intersected by 

 rivers, they pursue the stream to its fountain head. In great dearth of 

 rain they are compelled to halt, when they seek the most convenient en- 

 campment, and remain there till the weather changes. They make a simi-* 

 lar halt when the sun shines with intense heat, and wait for the cool of the 

 evening. The journey often takes them up three months before they ar- 

 rive on the sea coast ; as soon as they accomplish which, they plunge into 

 the water, shake off their spawn upon the sands, which they leave to na- 

 ture to mature and vivify, and immediately measure back their steps to the 

 mountains. The spawn, thus abandoned, are not left to perish : the soft 

 sands afford them a proper nidus ; the heat of the sun, and the water, give 

 them a birth ; when millions of little crabs are seen crawling to the shore, 

 and exploring their v/ay to the interior of the country, and thus quitting- 

 their elementary and native habitation, for a new and untried mode of 

 existence. It is the marvellous power of instinct that alone directs them, 

 as it directed the parent hosts from whom they have proceeded ; that mar- 

 vellous power which is co-extensive with the wide range of organic life, 

 universally recognised, though void of sensation ; consummately skilful, 

 though destitute of intelligence ; demanding no growth or developemeni 

 of faculties, but mature and perfect from its first formation. . 



The general corollary resulting from these observations is as follows ; 

 that instinct, as I have already defined it to be, is the operation of the 

 principle of organized life by the exercise of certain natural powers di- 

 rected to the present or future good of the individual ; while reason is the 

 operation of the principle of intellectual life by the exercise of certain ac- 

 quired powers directed to the same object : that it appertains to the whole 

 organized mass, as gravitation does to the whole unorganized ; equally 

 actuating the smallest and the largest portions, the minutest particles and 

 the bulkiest systems ; every organ and every part of every organ, whether 

 solid or duid, so long as it continues alive : that, like gravitation, it ex- 

 hibits, under particular circumstances, different modifications, different 

 powers, and different effects ; but that, like gravitation, too, it is subject 

 to its own division of laws, to which, under definite circumstances, it ad- 

 heres without the smallest deviation ; and that its sole and uniform aim, 

 whether acting generally or locally, is that of perfection, preservation, or 

 reproduction. 



