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has been a birth of feeling as well as a growth of form; the rising sense has united itself with the already mature instinct; and the natural nurse and the natural nursling will pine equally, if separated from each other.

The poet we have just adverted to, who may pre-eminently be called the poet of nature, has beautifully illustrated this remark by the yearning affec tion of the cow for her young calf when it has strayed from her or she has been robbed of it; hunting after it with intense anxiety in every direction, mourning for it with a cry that cannot fail to wind itself into every feeling heart, and equally refusing the fattening glebe and the refreshing stream." The female dugong or sea-cow of the Sumatra coast, whose general history we have already given a glance at,† evinces a like degree of maternal affection; insomuch that when its young has been entrapped or speared, the mother pursues it so closely and so fearlessly as to be taken with the greatest ease. The young sea-calves have a short, sharp, pitiable cry, which they frequently repeat; and, like the stricken deer, are also said to shed tears which, Sir Thomas Raffles tells us, are carefully preserved by the common people as a charm, the possession of which is supposed to secure the affections of those to whom they are attached in the same manner as they attract the mother to her young.‡

The instinct of this early age, however, belongs to such early age alone, and to the purpose of such early age alone: and when it has answered that purpose it ceases, and we meet with no more trace of it: but the feeling which follows so close upon it, and to which, perhaps, it has given birth, is of a higher order, and continues for a much longer period of time; and for a period of time, indeed, directly proportioned to its intensity, or, in other words, to the ascending rank of sentient or percipient life in which it makes its appearance.

Hence in the two lowest classes of animals, we meet with nothing of the sort whatever; the young of insects and worms having a foreign food provided for them without the intervention of the mother: and hence, too, in various quadrupeds and birds the feeling progressively dies away as the young become independent; while in man we behold the principle of intelligence, in its most lovely and interesting character, a moral and internal feeling, a sense of gratitude and veneration on the one side, of keen complacency and delight on the other, and of active affection on both, catching hold of the two preceding principles, and producing a strong cord of interunion that can never be broken but with the cords of the heart itself.

Something of the kind is occasionally, indeed, to be met with in quadrapeds, as I have formerly observed in the case of the seal and lamantin tribes (trichecus Manatus), which pass through life in families of single male and single female, never deserting or deserted by their young, till the latter, having reached the term of maturity, separate to found families of their own. In these cases we see examples of all the three principles of instinct, sensation, and intelligence in a state of union: and we occasionally meet with still more extraordinary examples of the same fact. One of the most extraordinary, perhaps, is that related by Mr. Gilbert White, in his very interesting History of Selbourn, of the gratitude and affection of a young hare towards a cat by which it had been suckled and brought up; the leveret following the cat about the garden, playing with her like a kitten, and bounding towards her upon her purring or uttering any other call of tenderness.

We see something of the same kind of internal feeling, and often exalted to a still higher pitch, in the gratitude and affection of the fond and faithful dog for a kind and indulgent master; occasionally, indeed, rising superior to, and openly triumphing over, the strongest instinctive feelings of the anima frame, over thirst and hunger, and the love of life itself; and inciting him to perish voluntarily by the side of his master and share his grave, rather than abandon his corse, when, in the course of a solitary journey, he has suddenly fallen a victim to accident or violence. The late Bishop of Landaff has a

* De Rer. Nat. ii. 352.
Phil. Trans. 1820, p. 181.

† Series 1. Lecture ii. p. 192

striking anecdote to this effect in his very interesting Life, in which he relates the sudden disappearance of a man, who, it seems, had perished on the top of Helvellyn; his body was found two months afterward in this exposed and desolate spot, with his faithful dog still sitting by it. And he adds a similar tale, told him by the duke of Northumberland, concerning a young antelope that had perished by a fall, whose mother immediately quitted the pasture in which she was feeding, sat piteously by the side of the body, which she refused to quit, and died of grief and hunger.

I will only adjoin another case of a like interesting kind, that occurred no: long since in my own family. A favourite cat, that was accustomed from day to day to take her station quietly at my elbow, on the writing-table, sometimes for hour after hour, while I was engaged in study, became at length less constant in her attendance, as she had a kitten to take care of One morning she placed herself in the same spot, but seemed unquiet; and, instead of seating herself as usual, continued to rub her furry sides against my hand and pen, as though resolved to draw my attention and make me leave off. As soon as she had accomplished this point she leaped down on the carpet, and made towards the door with a look of great uneasiness. I opened the door for her as she seemed to desire; but instead of going forward, she turned round and looked earnestly at me as though she wished me to follow her, or had something to communicate. I did not fully understand her meaning, and being much engaged at the time, shut the door upon her, that she might go where she liked. In less than an hour afterward she had again found an entrance into the room, and drawn close to me; but instead of mounting the table and rubbing herself against my hand as before, she was now under the table and continued to rub herself against my feet; on moving which, I struck them against a something which seemed to be in their way; and, on looking down, beheld, with equal grief and astonishment, the dead body of her little kitten covered over with cinder-dust, and which I supposed had been alive and in good health. I now entered into the entire train of this afflicted cat's feelings. She had suddenly lost the nursling she doted on, and was resolved to make me acquainted with it,-assuredly that I might know her grief, and probably also that I might inquire into the cause; and finding me too dull to understand her expressive motioning that I would follow her to the cinder-heap on which the dead kitten had been thrown, she took the great labour of bringing it to me herself, from the area on the basement floor, and up a whole flight of stairs, and laid it at my feet. I took up the kitten in my hand, the cat still following me, made inquiry into the cause of its death, which I found, upon summoning the servants, to have been an accident in which no one was much to blame; and the yearning mother having thus attained her object, and gotten her master to enter into her cause, and divide her sorrows with her, gradually took comfort, and resumed her former station by my side.

Yet, not unfrequently we meet with instances of the union of intelligence alone with instinct alone; of design and contrivance directed to extraordi nary occasions, no moral or internal feeling being necessary.

The rook usually and instinctively builds her nest in the tallest branches of the tallest trees in Welbourn churchyard, however, as we learn in a letter to Dr. Darwin, from a relative, a rookery was not long since formed on the outside of the spire, and the tops of the loftiest windows. There had formerly been a row or grove of high trees in the neighbourhood, but they had been cut down; and their aerial tenants being dispossessed of their proper mansion, had betaken themselves to the church-spire and windows, as the most appropriate building for their purpose; and had thus manifestly evinced the Sir Walter Scott has, with much judgment, selected a similar, perhaps the same story, as the basis of one of the most impressive and popular ballads in the English language:

I climb'd the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gieam'd misty and wide,
All was still, save, by fits, when the eagle was yelling,
And starting around me the echoes replied, &c. &c.

liance of instinct with intelligence. So the jackdaws of Selbourn, acording to Mr. White, not finding a sufficiency of towers and steeples, and afty houses, on which they usually hung their nests in this pleasant village, commodated themselves to the occasion, and built them in forsaken rabbitarrows.

The ostrich is accused of a total want of natural feeling, because she abanons her eggs to be hatched by the heat of the sun: when incubation is nessary, however, the ostrich instinctively employs it, and that, too, in connction with an intelligence which is rarely evinced by other birds. Thus Senegal, where the heat is still great, she relinquishes her eggs during the y, but sits upon them through the night; and at the Cape of Good Hope, here the heat is less considerable, she sits upon them, like other birds, both y and night. In like manner ducks and geese, though not renowned for gacity, cover up their eggs when they quit them, till their return to the est; and there are few birds that do not turn and shift their eggs at different riods of the tedious process of incubation, so as to give an equal degree warmth to every part. We have already observed, however, that the acmmodating power of the instinctive principle to particular circumstances, hich so wonderfully enables it to supply the place of reason, gives it, in any instances, a striking assumption of its character. It is, hence, possie that one or two of the examples here noticed may be referrible to this acommodating faculty; but the exercise of a certain extent of reason, as a stinct principle, must be admitted in several of them, in which there is not ly a display of design and contrivance towards the accomplishment of this ew object, but apparently of design and contrivance as the result of a gene1 convention and discussion of the question submitted to the tribe assembled the occasion, and whose common interest is at stake.

Generally speaking, the principle of instinct is perfect and infallible in its aidance; there is, however, an occasional aberration, perhaps a playfulness, this as in every other part of nature. Thus the light of the candle is, by ies and various other insects, mistaken for the light and warmth of the sun, ften to the loss of limb or even life itself. So the flesh-fly and blow-fly nusca carnifica and m. vomitoria) are deceived by the smell of the carrionower (stapelia hirsuta), and often deposite their eggs upon it instead of upon utrescent meat; in consequence of which the grubs die almost as soon as atched, for want of proper nourishment.

In like manner we find, occasionally, a few migrating birds in countries where they were never seen before, and which have evidently mistaken their

course.

There are various instincts, connected, for the most part, with a singularity of configuration, that are either peculiar to the birds, or altogether anomalous. But they show, at least, that the great Author of nature is the lord and not the lave of his own laws, and is at all times capable of producing definite effects y a diversity of means. Thus the didus solitarius, or solitary dodo, in eneral esteemed almost as stupid a bird as the ostrich, divides the labour of ncubation with his female, and alternately sits upon the eggs during her bsence. The hen of this tribe has a protuberance on each side the breast, ike the teat of quadrupeds. When the young of the turtle-dove are hatched, nd capable of receiving nutriment from the crop of the mother, the male parent experiences an equal change and enlargement in this organ, secretes he same nutritive material, and equally contributes to the support of its Lestlings.

I have already observed that insects in general deposite their eggs in places dmirably suited to the future wants of the nascent larves, and then for ever ake leave of their embryo progeny: but the forficula auricularia, or common ar-wig, broods over her young like a hen, and only quits them at night, which is the usual period in which this genus flies in pursuit of food or ecreation.

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Among migrating birds it is not very uncommon for the males alone to dare the dangers of a distant voyage, and to leave the females behind them: but in the fringilla Celebs, or chaffinch, we find this rule completely inverted; for the female chaffinches of Sweden quit their males and migrate to Holland towards the winter, and duly return to them in the spring; while many of the males indulge in a profound sleep during the greater period of their absence. Most vegetables indulge in a winter-sleep of the same kind; but there are some that sleep still longer. Thus the tuberose root of the ferraria Ferrariola, an ornamental herbaceous plant of the Cape of Good Hope, remains torpid every alternate year, and sometimes continues in this state for two years together, without putting forth either leaf or fibre.

Let us close these observations with a momentary glance at the very sin gular instinctive powers of the cancer ruricola, or land-crab. This is an inhabitant of the tropical regions, and especially of the Bahama islands: it is gregarious, and associates in large bodies that preserve an orderly society, for the most part, in the recesses of inland mountains, though they regularly once a year march down to the seaside in an army of some millions, to deposite their spawn in the ocean. The time selected for this expedition is usually the month of May, when they sally forth from the stumps of hollow trees, the clefts of rocks, and subterranean burrows, in enormous multitudes. The whole ground, indeed, is covered with this reptile band of adventurers; and no geometrician could direct them to their destined station by a shorter course. They turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, whatever be the obstacles that intervene; and if they meet with a house they will rather attempt to scale the walls than relinquish the unbroken tenor of their way. Occasionally, however, they are obliged to conform to the face of the country; and if it be intersected by rivers, they pursue the stream to its fountain head. In great dearth of rain they are compelled to halt, when they seek the most convenient encampment and remain there till the weather changes. They make a similar halt when the sun shines with intense heat, and wait for the cool of the evening. The journey often takes them up three months before they arrive on the seacoast; as soon as they accomplish which, they plunge into the water, shake off their spawn upon the sands, which they leave to nature to mature and vivify, and immediately measure back their steps to the mountains. The spawn, thus abandoned, are not left to perish: the soft sands afford them a proper nidus; the heat of the sun, and the water, give them a birth; when millions of little crabs are seen crawling to the shore and exploring their way to the interior of the country, and thus quitting their elementary and native habitation, for a new and untried mode of existence. It is the marvellous power of instinct that alone directs them, as it directed the parent hosts from whom they have proceeded; that marvellous power which is co-extensive with the wide range of organic life, universally recog nised, though void of sensation; consummately skilful, though, destitute of intelligence; demanding no growth or developement of faculties, but mature and perfect from its first formation.

The general corollary resulting from these observations is as follows: that instinct, as I have already defined it to be, is the operation of the principle of organized life by the exercise of certain natural powers, directed to the present or future good of the individual; while reason is the operation of the principle of intellectual life by the exercise of certain acquired powers directed to the same object: that it appertains to the whole organized mass, as gravitation does to the whole unorganized; equally actuating the smallest and the largest portions, the minutest particles and the bulkiest systems; every organ and every part of every organ, whether solid or fluid, so long as it continues alive: that, like gravitation, it exhibits, under particular circumstances, different modifications, different powers, and different effects; but that, like gravitation, too, it is subject to its own division of laws, to which, under definite circumstances, it adheres without the smallest deviation; and that its sole and uniform aim, whether acting generally or locally, is that of perfection, preservation, or reproduction,

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Of its mode of existence we know nothing: but as little do we know of the principle of gravitation or of mind. We can only assure ourselves that they are distinct powers, perhaps distinct essences; and we see them acting, as well separately as conjointly, for the general good. Under their accordant influence we behold the plastic and mysterious substance of matter, which we must be especially careful not to confound with themselves, rising from "airy nothing" into entity; ascending from invisible elements into worlds and systems of worlds; from shapeless chaos and confusion, into form, and order, and harmony; from brute and lifeless immobility, into energy and for activity; into a display of instinct, feeling, perception; of being, and beauty, and happiness. One common design, one uniform code of laws, equally simple and majestic, equally local and comprehensive, pervades, informs, unites, and consummates the whole. The effect, then, being one, the mighty cause that produced it must be one also; an eternal and infinite unity-the radiating fountain of all possible perfections-ever active, but ever at rest-ever present, though never seen-immaterial, incorporeal, ineffable: but the source of all matter, of all mind, of all existences, and all modes of existence. Whatever we behold is God-all nature is his awful temple-all sciences the porticoes that open to it: and the chief duty of philosophy is to conduct us to his altar; to render all our attainments, which are the bounteous afflations of his spirit, subservient to his glory; and to engrave on the tablet of our hearts this great accordant motto of all natural and all revealed religion, of Athens and of Antioch, of Aratus and of St. Paul, “in him we live, and move, and have our being."

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Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα

πάντη δὲ Διὸς κεχρήμεθα πάντες Τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος εσμέν.

LECTURE VI.

ON SYMPATHY AND FASCINATION.

We have now summarily contemplated several of the most important phenomena both of organic and inorganic nature; and have traced out something of the laws by which these phenomena are produced and regulated. Among the most extraordinary facts that have occurred to us may, perhaps, be enumerated the occasional production of effects by causes which do not appear to be immediately connected with them; the operation of one body upon another remotely situated, and which, so far as we are able to trace them, have no medium of communication. The sun is perpetually acting upon and influencing the earth, the earth the moon, the moon the ocean: the magnet operates upon iron, whatever be the sheet of substance interposed; and if the iron be divided into small filings, so that the different particles may move with facility, communicates to each an obvious polarity, and gives to the whole a peculiar and beautiful arrangement. And the repulsive and attractive powers of the electric fluid are supposed to act upon each other, not only where two or more particles of this fluid are perfectly or very nearly in contact, but between all particles of it, at all distances, whatever obstacles may lie between them.†

Chemical science lays open to us a wonderful field of similar affections and affinities. Within the range of its peculiar regions, we behold almost every substance evincing a determinate series both of inclinations and of antipathies, strongly attracted by one kind of material, indifferent towards a second, and powerfully avoiding a third. From these extraordinary endowments proceeds unquestionably the union or separation of different oodies, ↑ Young's Lectures, vol. i. p. 659

*Arat. Phænom. 1.4, 5.

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