Philosophers have been much puzzled about the essential characteristics of brutes, by which they may be distinguished from men. Some define a brute to be an animal that never laughs, or an animal incapable of laughter: some say they are mute animals. The Peripatetics allowed them a sensitive power, but denied them a rational one. The Platonists allowed them reason and understanding; though in a degree less pure, and less refined, than that of men. Lactantius allows them every thing which men have, except a sense of religion and some sceptics have gone so far as to say they have this also. Descartes maintained that brutes are mere inanimate machines, absolutely destitute, not only of all reason, but of all thought and reflection; and that all their actions are only consequences of the exquisite mechanism of their bodies. This system, however, is much older than Descartes; it was borrowed by him from Gomez Pereira, a Spanish physician, who employed thirty years in composing a treatise on this subject, which he very affectionately called by the name of his father and mother-"Antoniana Margarita." Systems and theories, however, differ very materially in their importance, according to the parent who ushers them into the world, and the obscurity or notoriety of the name to which they happen to be connected. Poor Gomez was so far from having opponents, that he had not even readers: his theory, in the hands of Descartes, excited a controversy which reached from one end of Europe to the other: many, who maintained the opposite hypothesis to Descartes, contended that brutes are endowed with a soul, essentially inferior to that of man; and to this soul some have impiously allowed immortality. But the most curious of all opinions, respecting the understanding of beasts, is that advanced by Père Bougeant, a Jesuit, in a work entitled "Philosophical Amusement on the Language of Beasts." In this book he contends, that each animal is inhabited by a separate

and distinct devil; that not only this was the case with respect to cats, which have long been known to be very favourite residences of familiar spirits, but that a peculiar devil swam with every turbot, grazed with every ox, soared with every lark, dived with every duck, and was roasted with every chicken.

The most common notion now prevalent, with respect to animals, is, that they are guided by instinct; that the discriminating circumstance between the minds of animals and of men is, that the former do what they do from instinct, the latter from reason. Now, the question is, is there any meaning to the word instinct? what is that meaning? and what is the distinction between instinct and reason? If I desire to do a certain thing, adopt certain means to effect it, and have a clear and precise notion that those means are directly subservient to that end, there I act from reason; but, if I adopt means subservient to the end, and am uniformly found to do so, and am not in the least degree conscious that these means are subservient to the end,-there I certainly do act from some principle very different from reason; and to which principle, it is as convenient to give the name of instinct, as any other name. If I build a house for my family, and lay it out into different apartments, separating it horizontally with floors, and give the obvious principles on which I have done so,-here is plainly an invention of meaning, and an application of previous experience, which any body would call by the name of reason; but if I am detected making double doors to the drawing-room, putting up snug shelves in the butler's pantry, and making the whole house as convenient as possible, and it is quite plain at the same time that I have no possible motive to allege why I have done these things, that I am quite ignorant double doors are pleasant at routs, and shelves eminently useful to butlers, for the more orderly and decorous arrangement of glass ware, there, it is very plain I am not constituted as

other men are; that I am not applying previous experience to new cases,—not arguing that what has happened before, will happen again; but that I am generically different from all others of my species, and that my mind is not the mind of man. Bees, it is well known, construct their combs with small cells on both sides, fit for holding their store of honey, and for receiving their young. There are only three possible figures of the cells, which can make them all equal and similar, without any useless interstices: these are, the equilateral triangle, the square, and the regular hexagon. It is well known to mathematicians, 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 leaving any interstices. Of the three, the hexagon is the most proper both for conveniency and strength; and accordingly, bees as if they were acquainted with these things make all their cells regular hexagons. As the combs have cells on both sides, the cells may either be exactly opposite, having partition against partition, -or the bottom of a cell may rest upon the partitions, between the cells, on the other side; which will serve as a buttress to strengthen it. The last way is the best for strength; accordingly, the bottom of each cell rests against the point where three partitions meet on the other side, which gives it all the strength possible. The bottom of a cell may either be one plane perpendicular to the side partitions, or it may be composed of several planes meeting in a solid angle in the middle point. It is only in one of these two ways, that all the cells can be similar without losing room; and, for the same intention, the planes of which the bottom is composed if there be more than one must be exactly three in number, and neither more nor less. It has been demonstrated also, that by making the bottom to consist of three planes meeting in a point, there is a saving of materials and labour, by no means incon

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siderable. The bees, as if acquainted with the principles of solid geometry, follow them most accurately: the bottom of each cell being composed of three planes, which make obtuse angles with the side partitions, and with one another, and meet in a point in the middle of the bottom; the three angles of this bottom, being supported by three partitions on the other side of the comb, and the point of it by the common intersection of those three partitions.

One instance more of the mathematical skill displayed in the structure of a honeycomb deserves to be mentioned. 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 materials and labour. This is one of those problems belonging to the higher parts of mathematics, which are called problems of maxima and minima. It has been resolved by some mathematicians, particularly by Mr. Maclaurin, by a fluxionary calculation, which is to be found in the ninth volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Society of London." He has determined precisely the angle required; and he found, by the most exact mensuration the subject could admit, that it is the very angle in which the three planes in the bottom of the cell of a honeycomb do actually meet. How is all this to be explained? Imitation it certainly is not; for, after every old bee has been killed, you may take the honeycomb and hatch a new swarm of bees, that cannot possibly have had any communication with, or instruction from, the parents. The young of every animal, though they have never seen the dam, will do exactly as all their species have done before them. A brood of young ducks, hatched under a hen, take to the water in spite of the remonstrances and terrors of their spurious parent. All the great habitudes of every species of animals, have repeatedly been proved to be independent of imitation.

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member Mr. Stewart, in his "Lectures," quotes an experiment of this kind, made by Sir James Hall of Edinburgh, who has distinguished himself so much by his very important experiments upon the chemistry of mineralogy. Sir James hatched some chickens in an oven: within a few minutes after the shell was broken, a spider was turned loose before this very youthful brood; — the destroyer of flies had hardly proceeded a few inches before he was descried by one of these ovenborn chickens, and, at one peck of his bill, immediately devoured. This certainly was not imitation. A female goat, very near delivery, died; Galen cut out the young kid, and placed before it a bundle of hay, a bunch of fruit, and a pan of milk: the young kid smelt to them all very attentively, and then began to lap the milk. This was not imitation. And what is commonly and rightly called instinct, cannot be explained away, under the notion of its being imitation. Nor can it be mere accident; because, though it is not impossible that one swarm of bees might adopt these figures and measurements, without knowing their importance, it is not to be believed that mere accident can uniformly produce such extraordinary effects. The warmest admirers of honey, and the greatest friends to bees, will never, I presuine, contend, that the young swarm, who begin making honey three or four months after they are born, and immediately construct these mathematical cells, should have gained their geometrical knowledge as we gain ours, and in three months' time outstrip Mr. Maclaurin in mathematics as much as they did in making honey. It would take a senior wrangler at Cambridge ten hours a day, for three years together, to know enough mathematics for the calculation of these problems, with which not only every queen bee, but every under-graduate grub, is acquainted the moment it is born. A few more instances of a principle of action among animals, which cannot be reason, and I have