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adapting the animal to changed conditions ; and the imperfect 
conception of the latter quality which I have just mentioned 
as evidenced in Paley's definition, is, perhaps, attributable to 
the fact that the attention of those philosophers who have 
sought to define the nature of instinct has been too exclusively 
monopolized by what, regarded from a human stand-point, is 
its most remarkable and distinctive feature ; viz., its tendency 
to produce actions which previous experience could not have 
shown to be expedient; and that, consequently, they have 
merely differentiated it from intellect, rejecting from their 
definitions a quality which, as a more careful observation 
would have taught them, is common to both. Hence the 
occasional influence of memory in instinctive actions has been 
generally either ignored or denied ; but as long as we enter- 
tain the notion that the application of past experience to 
present circumstances necessarily implies an act of intel- 
ligence, so long will our views of comparative psychology be 
erroneous. 
The brute, being destitute of human intelligence, is en- 
dowed with a wider range of instinct. Both brute and man 
experience a tendency to fly from the presence of a stronger 
antagonist; but the instinct, for instance, displayed by the 
beaver in the construction of his dam has apparently no 
analogue in human psychology, because the wants of man in 
this respect are supplied by his intelligence. So long as they 
are subjected to the influence of a common instinct, they both 
behave in a similar manner ; but, while the beaver always 
builds his dam in the same way, an Englishman constructs 
his house, and frequently the same house, on five or six dif- 
ferent architectural principles. We cannot fix on any style of 
architecture which is peculiar to a variety of the human race 
in the sense that a particular style of nidification is peculiar 
to a given species of bird. A Chinaman or an American 
Indian can build his house like an Englishman if he chooses ; 
but we cannot teach a blackbird to build his nest like a 
thrush, any more then we can induce a bee to construct his 
cell after the fashion of wasps. And this unvarying 
uniformity, by which its operations are characterized, not only 
constitutes a distinctive feature of instinct as compared with 
the intellect, but it also furnishes us with the key to its practical 
objects. The animal, having certain duties to discharge in 
the natural economy, is furnished with instincts which tend 
towards the preservation of himself and his species as a 
means to the fulfilment of those duties. The feelings from 
which all his actions proceed may be classified under the same 
head : his fear, his anger, his love, are but the handmaidens 
