REASON. 
115 
these intellectual faculties to the credit, if we may so 
term it, of instinct. 
What do you call instinct ? What do you understand 
by that word ? Is it, as we believe, the inward working 
of an exterior power, such as we understand under the 
term “ Providence,’’ an order emanating from the same 
—a revelation ? Does the brute act under the influence 
of such a power, without being able to render to itself an 
account of its own actions, without being conscious of 
the same ? * 
In the meanwhile, we may say that there is truly much 
which is problematical, or which remains unexplained; 
thus, for example, it cannot be denied that birds are 
much more weather-wise than we are, and that they are 
unquestionably good barometers. My father relates 
several instances in confirmation of this, which had come 
under his personal observation :—“ In the spring of 
1816 an unusual number of Kingfishers established 
themselves along the high banks of the small brooks and 
streams of Thuringia; in the course of the summer the 
rivers Elster, Saale, and Unstrut rose so high, by reason 
of the heavy rains, that all the nesting-places on their 
banks were submerged.” Patzler relates a somewhat 
similar anecdote :—“ In the spring of 1852 all the Keed 
Warblers’ nests I found were built higher from the 
ground than usual, while old nests of the previous year, 
which I had found in the same osier bed on the banks of 
* The translators have omitted some portion of the author’s ideas upon the 
subject of reason in animals, as they are entirely of a controversial character, 
and not suitable for the general reader. To modify them were an injustice to 
the author, which it would be quite against the wishes of the translators to 
commit; at the same time any of their readers who may desire to learn the 
entire views of the author upon this subject can refer to the original work, page 96 , 
second edition.— H. M. L, — }V. J. 
