INSTINCTS. 
179 
rected to a future end, and having no accomplishment or 
gratification distinct from the attainment of that end. 
In a word; I should say to the patrons of this opinion, 
Be it so: be it, that those actions of animals which we re¬ 
fer to instinct, are not gone about with any view to their 
consequences, but that they are attended in the animal 
with a present gratification, and are pursued for the sake of 
that gratification alone; what does all this prove, but that 
the prospeciion, which must be somewhere, is not in the 
animal, but in the Creator? 
In treating of the parental affection in brutes, our busi¬ 
ness lies rather with the origin of the principle, than with 
the effects and expressions of it. Writers recount these 
with pleasure and admiration. The conduct of many kinds 
of animals towards their young, has escaped no observer, 
no historian of nature. “How will they caress them,” 
says Derham, “with their affectionate notes; lull and quiet 
them with their tender parental voice; put food into their 
mouths; cherish and keep them warm; teach them to 
pick, and eat, and gather food for themselves; and, in a 
word, perform the part of so many nurses, deputed by the 
sovereign Lord and Preserver of the world, to help such 
young and shiftless creatures!” Neither ought it, under 
this head, to be forgotten, how much the instinct costs the 
animal which feels it; how much a bird, for example, gives 
up, by sitting upon her nest; how repugnant it is to her 
organization, her habits, and her pleasures. An animal, 
formed for liberty, submits to confinement in the very sea¬ 
son when everything invites her abroad: what is more; an 
animal delighting in motion, made for motion, all whose 
motions are so easy and so free, hardly a moment, at other 
times, at rest, is, for many hours of many days together, 
fixed to her nest, as close as if her limbs were tied down by 
pins and wires. For my part, I never see a bird in that 
situation, but I recognise an invisible hand, detaining the 
contented prisoner from her fields and groves, for the pur¬ 
pose, as the event proves, the most worthy of the sacrifice, 
the most important, the most beneficial. 
But the loss of liberty is not the whole of what the pro- 
creant bird suffers. Harvey tells us, that he has often 
found the female wasted to skin and bone by sitting upon 
her eggs. 
One observation more, and I will dismiss the subject. 
The pairing of birds, and the non-pairing of beasts, forms 
a distinction between the two classes, which shows that the 
conjugal instinct is modified with a reference to utility 
