pensities or faculties: and the words Instinct and Reason come up as nearly to the view of the case as any others we could employ. Hence, while Reason acts with intelligence and design, (variably indeed and inconstantly,) profiting by experience, comparing motives, balancing probabilities, looking forward to the future and adapting itself to every change of circumstance; Instinct operates with uniformity in all individuals of the same species, and performs its office with unerring certainty, prior to all experience.

It is proper for me here to remark, that the word Reason is used in senses which are extremely different; sometimes to express the whole of those powers which elevate man above the brutes, and constitute what is called his rational nature; more especially, perhaps, his intellectual powers; and sometimes to express the power of deduction or argumentation. The former is the sense in which the word is used in common discourse. It is in the latter restricted sense, as indeed is implied a little above, that I wish the word Reason to be understood, whereever it occurs in this Essay, viz. the discursive faculty, wholly depending on outward evidence for its conclusions. Hence, if there be any actions which are performed with every indication of design, forethought, and wisdom, which are not the result of instruction nor of individual experience, but of a power operating above the consciousness of the creature, and directing it with unerring certainty to some

* See Outlines of Moral Philosophy by Stewart, Sect. 9.

specific ends by means far beyond its comprehension, whether in man or in the brute; these actions are instinctive. And on the other hand, if there be any actions, which evidently result from observation and instruction, indicating an intelligent power of combining means and adapting them to ends of which the creature is conscious; these actions come within the province of Reason.

According to this view of the subject, we shall find, that Man himself, more especially the human infant, is not without his instincts; which immediately tend to the preservation of his existence, at times, when Reason, either from its tardy growth or want of promptitude, and general inefficiency, would be unable to superintend the different offices of the animal economy, for which the former are appointed.

CHAPTER II.

EXAMPLES OF INSTINCT IN THE WORKS OF ANIMALS, AND THE CARE OF THEIR YOUNG; AND IN THEIR CHOICE OF FOOD.-REMARKS ON THE ADAPTATION OF STRUCTURE TO CLIMATE, AND ADAPTATION OF HABIT AND DISPOSITION TO STRUCTURE, &c.

SECT. I.

Examples of Instinct in the Works of Animals, and the Care of their Young.

"THE works of animals, says Dr. Reid, present us with a wonderful variety of instincts; the nests of birds so similar in their situation and architecture in the same kind, so various in different kinds; the webs of spiders; the ball of the silk worm; the nests of ants and other mining animals; the combs of wasps, hornets, and bees; the dams and houses of beavers.

"But while every manufacturing art among men was invented by some man, improved by others, and brought to perfection by time and experience, and known only to those who have been taught them; in

the arts of animals no individual can claim the invention. Every animal of the species has equal skill from the beginning, without teaching, without experience or habit. Every one has its art by a kind of inspiration; not that it is inspired with the principles or rules of the art, but with the ability and inclination of working in it to perfection, without any knowledge of its principles, rules, or end.

"The youngest pair of birds, it is known, without instruction or experience, build their first nest of the materials commonly used by their species; in situations too most secure and convenient for incubation and the rearing of their young. This cannot be imitation; for, as Addison says, "Though you hatch a crow under a hen, and never let it see any of the works of its own kind, the nest it makes shall be the same, to the laying of a stick, with all the other nests of the same species. It cannot be reason: for were animals endued with it to as great a degree as man, their buildings would be as different as ours, according to the different conveniencies that they would propose to themselves."+

The work of every animal is, like the works of nature, perfect in its kind, and can bear the most critical examination of the mechanic or the mathematician. Let us take an example from the Bee. Dr. Reid further remarks, that "there are only three possible figures of the cells which can make them all + Spectator, vol. ii.

* Reid's Essays, vol. iii. chap. 1.

equal and similar, without any useless interstices. These are the equilateral triangle, the square, and the regular hexagon. Mathematicians know that there is not a fourth way possible, in which a plane may be cut into little spaces that shall be equal, similar, and regular without useless spaces. Of the three figures, the hexagon is the most proper for conveniency and strength. Bees, as if they knew this, make their cells regular hexagons."

But the bottom of each cell rests upon the partitions between the cells on the other side, which serve as a buttress to strengthen it; and this gives it all the strength possible.

“Again, it has been demonstrated that, by making the bottoms of the cells to consist of three planes meeting in a point, there is a saving of material and labour no way inconsiderable. The bees, as if acquainted with these principles of solid geometry, follow them most accurately. It is a curious mathematical problem, at what precise angle the three planes which compose the bottom of a cell ought to meet, in order to make the greatest possible saving, or the least expense, of material and labour. This is one of the problems which belong to the higher parts of mathematics. It has accordingly been resolved by some mathematicians, particularly by the ingenious Maclaurin, by a fluxionary calculation, which is to be found in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London. He has determined precisely the angle required, and he found by the most exact mensuration