ON INSTINCT, 
347 
** Reason is progressive; instinct is complete 
Swift instinct leaps, slow reason feebly climbs. 
Brutes soon their zenith reach; their little all 
Flows in at once, in ages they no more 
Could know, or covet, or enjoy.” 
The first is the privilege of man, and is the test of an intel¬ 
lectual nature;—the latter has something belonging to it almost 
mechanical, and marks no degree of superiority or merit in the 
possessor. 0/ie bee is as expert in forming the cell with geome¬ 
trical exactness as another. Nor do they ever improve or dege¬ 
nerate ; the bees of the present day do not excel those of the 
days of Adam. 
Here, then, is a clear distinction between reason and instinct. 
There is not, in my opinion, any thing more mysterious in 
nature than the instinct of animals, which thus rises above rea¬ 
son, and falls infinitely short of it. I have adduced sufficient to 
show that the intellect is not the great principle of instinct, yet 
I believe that it must be allowed that all ani?nals, gifted with the 
ordinary organs of sensation, more or less employ their intellect 
in the whole routine of their instinctive operations. It is this 
circumstance that has led to a belief that instinct was capable 
of improvement. T will give a few examples that will explain 
this phenomena. 
A bee which Auber watched, while soldering the angles of 
a cell with propolis, detached a thread of this material with 
which she entered the cell. Instinct would have taught her to 
separate it of the exact length required ; but, after applying it 
to the angle of the cell, she found it too long, and cut off a por¬ 
tion so as to fit it to her purpose.” 
A second instance is cited by Dr. Darwin, who informs us, 
that, walking one day in his garden, he perceived a wasp upon 
the gravel-walk with a large fly nearly as big as itself, which it 
had caught. Kneeling down, he distinctly saw it cut off the 
head and abdomen, and then, taking up with its feet the trunk 
or middle portion of the body, to which the wings remained 
attached, fly away; but a breeze of wind acting upon the wings 
of the fly, turned round the wasp with its burthen, and impeded 
its progress. Upon this it alighted again upon the gravel 
walk, sawed off first one wing and then the other, and, having 
thus removed the cause of its embarrassment, flew off with its 
booty.” Could any process of reasoning be more perfect? ‘ Some¬ 
thing acts upon the wings of this fly and impedes my flight. If 
I wish to reach my nest quickly, I must get rid of them—to 
effect which the shortest way will be to alight again and cut 
them off.’ These reflections, or others of similar import, must 
