maternal invitation, but in spite of the utmost efforts of the hen (if it has been so hatched) to prevent it.” *

II.-The existence and allotments of instinct afford powerfully convincing evidence of design. It is a peculiar propensity adapted to many necessary and valuable purposes. Without it the distinction of classes among animated beings would have been plainly impracticable ; or if such distinction had existed, many would have been in danger of perishing. Either all must have been rational, and formed at the same time in maturity, or something capable of answering the purposes of reason, and with infallible certainty, must have been given to the animals destitute of it; and this compensating principle, in order to co-exist with the want of reason, must have been limited to that class of necessities which, although reason be withheld, are essential to animated beings, and therefore could not be avoided. Such precisely is Instinct. It compensates for the want of a reasoning power in regard to all these necessities, and it shews itself most in animals whose faculties are of the lowest order,—who could not be cared for, guided, and directed by others, and who are in no respect responsible to man. The allotments of it are wonderful. They not only contribute to the distinction of orders among those who are guided by it, but present a striking accommodation in measure and degree to the habits and destinies of each order, and particularly to the necessities of the young. The different kinds of birds are discriminated from one another as truly by the construction and site of their nests, as by their shape, their colours, or their song. Their organical structure, and the diversity to be seen in the size and appearance of their eggs, did not proceed from themselves, but the structure of their nests, however it

may

be influenced by these, as clearly belongs to the distinction of genera and species; and thus indicating the same design with the former, must be traced to the

same supreme

and all-disposing intellect.

One great business intrusted to instinct is the preservation of the individual or the kind ; and this appears in many cases in which sexual appetite has no concern.

How clear is the evidence of this design in the propensity of birds to hang their nests on the outermost boughs, in those countries where they are apt to be annoyed by monkeys,-the natural inhabitants of trees! Caterpillars, too, who do not propagate, but in whom

• ANDERSOx's Recreations, No. 1.

a

the race must be preserved, when they prepare a retreat for themselves, seem to foresee the length of time during which they are to remain in the chrysalis state, and according to this circumstance regulate the solidity and position of their tombs. Some who are to remain but a few days, choose a tender leaf and moisten it with gum. The leaf bends gradually, twists itself up, and dries round the animal, who is there quickly matured by the heat of the sun. Others merely suspend themselves by a thread or drop of glue to a vine prop, and wait their change. But those who are to pass the winter in the chrysalis state take other precautions, (if the expression be allowed,) seek the shelter of some house or other covert, and there incrust themselves in a more durable vault. Moths who fly in the evenings before the twilight is gone, and in the summer months when it disappears but for a short time, live for several days, and have thus an opportunity of enjoying existence, and continuing the species. These, it is well known, may be attracted by a candle, and are prevented by no instinct from perishing in the flame. But the ephemeral fly, which is produced during the darkness of night, and has but an hour or two to live for the purposes of nature, though it be equally attracted by a light, is yet repelled by its instinct from rushing to the flame; and if a torch be held up at the time of their emanation from the waters, myriads will resort to it and fly in circles around it at a convenient distance. But for this instinct it might have been in the power of man, by kindling large fires, to have destroyed the whole race.* The working bees are of neither sex, yet how solicitous are they about the preservation of the species ! And as this greatly depends on their own existence, a portion of their labour is most anxiously devoted to the treasuring up a store of food for the season in which it is not to be found.

Besides the discrimination and preservation of the different orders of animated beings, the manner in which the force of instinct is proportioned to the exigency of the case, is a farther

• The phenomenon referred to is strikingly exhibited on the waters of the Seine. Many of the Parisians, aware of the time when it may be expected, assemble on the banks with lights, and guarding their mouths and nostrils, that they may not be suffocated with the immense swarm risir:g from the river, are amused and delighted with the brilliant circles formed around them, the transparent shining wings of the insects reflecting all the colours of the rainbow. The emanation takes place in August. The swarm begins to rise between ten o'clock and midnight, and in the morning lies dead on the bank's sometimes more than a foot in thickness, besides the myriads immersed in the river.

fevidence of design. The idea of relation previously intended and recognised by a First Cause planning his work, is strongly impressed on the mind. The chick understands the voice of the hen, can balance its body, can walk and run as soon as it breaks from the shell. But " an infant is the most helpless of all beings; no danger alarms it, nor can it make the smallest effort to preserve itself. A tiger may approach it without occasioning terror; nor would it attempt to screen itself though the lion's mouth were opened to devour it. The voice of the mother is not understood for many weeks, and knowledge is acquired but by slow degrees in consequence of a development of its rational faculties." Now, not to mention, that if its progress be slow, its ultimate attainments are far superior to those of other animals, the necessity of varied and powerful instinct is not the same, for the parents of the human being are both rational and responsible; and full scope is left for the exercise of that care about their offspring, which, while it is rewarded by manifold pleasures, converts parental intelligence, affection, and moral obligation, to all the purposes answered by instinct in the young of other classes, and to higher purposes, on a plan suited at once to the dignity of our race, and our high susceptibility of moral and intellectual improvement.

No theories that have been devised to account for instinct, can affect the argument so far as it bears on the evidence of design. Say that the instincts of animals are analogous to the irritability of plants, by which the impressions of heat and cold, the increase or diminution of the weight of the atmosphere, &c. contract or expand them; still, the instinct in the one department of nature, like the irritability in the other, has an evident direction to certain useful purposes, which it will ever accomplish. No matter how the fact be explained, the proof of design demonstrative of an Intelligent First Cause contemplating the relations and necessities of his works, will be as valid as ever. One theory "resolves instinct into sensation, and asserts that what seems to have a view to the future is accounted for by the present disposition of the animal, e. g. incubation is prompted by the pleasure arising from the pressure of the smooth convex shells on the abdomen of the fowl. But this does not lessen the force of the argument, for why is the pleasure given, or why does the organization on which it depends exist, but in relation to the future ?"*

PALEY, Nat. Theol. ch. xviii,

a

III. In the phenomena of instinct we find a constant active exhibition of contrivance upon the truest principles of mechanism,—which contrivance cannot possibly be ascribed to the animal.-It is obvious that we pass here from the existence of instinct, to its mode of operating, and the effects produced by it. Take for an example out of the thousands that might be adduced, the structure of the cells of a honeycomb. The symmetry is admirable ; the materials are most skilfully applied to the best purpose, and with the greatest economy. The contrivance cannot, according to our first proposition, belong to the bee, which gives no other proof of such a degree of intelligence as the capacity of contriving must necessarily imply. Neither is the fabric the result of experience or instruction. It is uniformly the same in every hive, and has been so in all ages of the world. What is this contrivance, which must suppose an intelligent agent, but just the finger of God, operating indeed according to an established law, and therefore not miraculously, but operating more visibly than in those cases in which reason intervenes? In the latter, there is a subordinate intelligence to which the effect may be ascribed, but in the case of instinct we have no medium, capable of contrivance, intervening between the effect and the first Intelligence ; to him therefore the contrivance, or skill displayed, must at once be ascribed, although an animated being be employed as an instrument to produce the effect. Instinct, by accomplishing in a certain limited sphere effects justified by necessity, and similar to those which would result from reason, instruction, and experience, but clearly without these, is just one way of showing most convincingly to reason or rational beings the continual agency of an Intelligent First Cause,—and may thus serve to prevent us from losing among secondary causes and mediums the idea of the constant dependance of Nature upon him in all her other forms and departments.

Before leaving the subject, it may be proper to remark, in farther confirmation of this view, that the theories devised to account for Instinct not only leave the argument from Design untouched, though they were admitted, but are all very defective, and will be found to apply but to few cases. The impulse of present sensations may be analogous to appetite ; but we perceive in the phenomena of instinct much which no present sensations can ever explain,-apparent calculations on the future, and on the very measure of necessities,-results too simi. lar to those of human skill and deliberation, but much more

do

perfect. If the present sensations of the female among birds seem to account for her propensity to sit on her eggs,

what shall we say of the neuters among bees, to whom the

eggs not belong? They have no sexual feelings, yet they laboriously prepare the nest in which the eggs are to be deposited, seem to understand the necessities of the female, and to calculate the very number of eggs to be laid. Allow that an appropriate sensation has been given them by their Maker, (for who else could give it,) and that this prompts them to provide for the business of propagation or for laying up the requisite stores of food, still no sensation whatever can account for that skill, the attribute of reason, which appears in the construction of the cells where the eggs and food are deposited,--and even in regulating the sensations supposed. The insect knows no more of the matter than the machine which teases and produces in due succession the rolls of cotton, spins it into thread, or coils it into skeins. The structure of a cell by the process of instinct, as far as intelligence is concerned, just resembles the production of those plants by the process of vegetation which afford the appropriate nidi or nests to other species of insects ; that is, however different the means, their adaptation in the one case and the other, with their respective relations to the end, are entirely the work of the Almighty; and on this head the facts are of the same order with others in nature, not usually imputed to instinct, because supposed to be less in the power of the animal,-as, for example, that pucerons should be viviparous in summer when food abounds, and oviparous in autumn for the purpose of escaping destruction by the severity of winter. It is not meant to affirm that insects or animals acting by instinct are mere machines, but that they are so in point of intelligence, or the skill which ensures and infallibly produces the effect. They are living machines, in which it may be said the principle of perpetual motion is employed, and to the best purpose, superseding the application of external force ; not, however, continuing the action, but capable of suspending and renewing it in the proper circumstances. The formation of such machines, so far beyond all the power of art, shews a skill and contrivance which certainly argues an Intelligent and Perfect Cause. But from the complexion of the machine, all its actings (we shall call them rather than motions) must be sustained and regulated by the same cause, and to him alone must be ascribed the continual contrivance evinced in all the results of their acting.