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 it.s 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 appropriate.! 
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 
rivers 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 was seated on the tumbril of 
one of the guns, by some accident fell offj 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 bo destitute of Ike desire to eat when bis 
system should require food. Still the author would byno means maintain that 
there are, oven among Bees, no manifestations of intelligence ; for a careful 
study of their habits shows that they do profit by experience, in a manner 
that shews a certain amount of educability. And this faculty may not impro- 
bably bo connected with the presence of a rudimentary ecrebrtim, which is 
capable of being distinguished from the sensorial centres that constitute the 
principal part of their cephalic ganglia.” — Ibid. p. 094. 
* Beattie, “Mor. Sci.” I. ii. § 8. f “ Penny Cyclop.” xii. 497. 
