young; yet, in her way, she is as careful in inaking provi sion for them, as any other bird.

egg in Overy hole.

She does not leave her

The salmon suffers no surmountable obstacle to oppose her progress up the stream of fresh rivers. And what does she do there? She sheds a spawn, which she immediately quits, in order to return to the sea; and this issue of her body she never afterwards recognises in any shape whatever. Where shall we find a motive for her efforts and her perseverance? Shall we seek it in argumentation, or in instinct? The violet crab of Jamaica performs a fatiguing march of some months' continuance, from the mountains to the sea-side. When she reaches the coast, she casts her spawn into the open sea; and sets out upon her return home.

Moths and butterflies, as hath already been observed, seek out for their eggs those precise situations and substances, in which the offspring caterpillar will find its appropriate food. That dear caterpillar the parent butterfly must never see. There are no experiments to prove that she would retain any knowledge of it, if she did. How shall we account for her conduct? I do not mean for her art and judgment in selecting and securing a maintenance for her young, but for the impulse upon which she acts What should induce her to exert any art, or judgment, or choice, about the matter? The undisclosed grub, the animal which she is destined not to know, can hardly be the object of a particular affection, if we deny the influence of instinct. There is nothing, therefore, left to her, but that of which her nature seems incapable, an abstract anxiety for the general preservation of the species; a kind of patriotism; a solicitude lest the butterfly race should cease from the creation.

Lastly, the principle of association will not explain the discontinuance of the affection when the young animal is grown up. Association, operating in its usual way, would rather produce a contrary effect. The object would become more necessary by habits of society: whereas birds and beasts, after a certain time, banish their offspring; disown their acquaintance; seem to have even no knowledge of the objects which so lately engrossed the attention of their minds, and occupied the industry and labor of their bodies. This change, in different animals takes place at different distances of time from the birth, but the time always corresponds with the ability of the young animal to maintain itself; never anticipates it. In

the sparrow tribe, when it is perceived that the young brood can fly and shift for themselves, then the parents forsake them forever; and though they continue to live together, pay them no more attention than they do to other birds in the same flock. I believe the same thing is true of all gregarious quadrupeds.

In this part of the case, the variety of resources, expedients, and materials, which animals of the same species are said to have recourse to, under different circumstances, and when differently supplied, makes nothing against the doctrine of instincts. The thing which we want to account for, is the propensity. The propensity being there, it is probable enough that it may put the animal upon different actions, according to different exigencies. And this adaptation of resources may look like the effect of art and consideration, rather than of instinct; but still the propensity is instinctive. For instance, suppose what is related of the woodpecker to be true, that, in Europe, she deposits her eggs in cavities, which she scoops out in the trunks of soft or decayed trees, and in which cavities the eggs lie concealed from the eye, and in some sort safe from the hand of man; but that, in the forests of Guinea and the Brazils, which man seldom frequents, the same bird hangs her nest to the twigs of tall trees; thereby placing them out of the reach of monkeys and snakes; i. e. that in each situation she prepares against the danger which she has most occasion to apprehend: suppose, I say, this to be true, and to be alleged, on the part of the bird that builds these nests, as evidence of a reasoning and distinguishing precaution, still the question returns, whence the propensity to build at all?

Nor does parental affection accompany generation by any universal law of animal organization, if such a thing were intelligible. Some animals cherish their progeny with the most ardent fondness, and the most assiduous attention; others entirely neglect them; and this distinction always meets the constitution of the young animal, with respect to its wants and capacities. In many, the parental care extends to the young animal; in others, as in all oviparous fish, it is confined to the egg, and even, as to that, to the disposal of it in its proper element. Also, as there is generation without parental affection, so is there parental instinct, or what exactly resembles it, without generation. In the bee tribe, the grub is nurtured neither by the father

*Goldsmith's Nat. ist vol. iv. p. 244.

nor the mother, but by the neutral bee. is the same with ants.

Probably the case

I am not ignorant of the theory which resolves instinct into sensation; which asserts, that what appears to have a view and relation to the future, is the result only of the present disposition of the animal's body, and of pleasure or pain experienced at the time. Thus the incubation of eggs is accounted for by the pleasure which the bird is supposed to receive from the pressure of the smooth convex surface of the shells against the abdomen, or by the relief which the mild temperature of the egg may afford to the heat of the lower part of the body, which is observed at this time to be increased beyond its usual state. This present gratification is the only motive with the hen for sitting upon her nest; the hatching of the chickens, is with respect to her, an accidental consequence. The affection of viviparous animals for their young is, in like manner, solved by the relief, and perhaps the pleasure, which they receive from giving suck. The young animal's seeking, in so many instances, the teat of its dam, is explained from the sense of smell, which is attracted by the odour of milk. The salmon's urging its way up the stream of fresh water rivers, is attributed to some gratification or refreshment, which, in this particular state of the fish's body, she receives from the change of element. Now of this theory t may be said,

case.

First, that of the cases which require solution, there are tow to which it can be applied with tolerable probability, that there are none to which it can be applied without strong objections, furnished by the circumstances of the The attention of the cow to its calf, and of the ewe to its lamb, appear to be prior to their sucking. The at traction of the calf or lamb to the teat of the dam, is not explained by simply referring it to the sense of smell What made the scent of milk so agreeable to the lamb, that it should follow it up with its nose, or seek with its mouth the place from which it proceeded? No observation, no experience, no argument could teach the new dropped animal, that the substance from which the scent issued, was the material of its food. It had never tasted milk before its birth. None of the animals, which are not designed for that nourishment, ever offer to suck, or to seek out any such food. What is the conclusion, but that the sugescent parts of animals are fitted for their use, and the knowledge of that use put into them?

We assert, seondly, that, even as to the cases in which the hypothesis has the fairest claim to consideration, it does not at all lessen the force of the argument for intention and design. The doctrine of instincts is that of appetencies, superadded to the constitution of an animal, for the effectuating of a purpose beneficial to the species. The above-stated solution would derive these appetencies from organization; but then this organization is not less specifically, not less precisely, and, therefore, not less evidently adapted to the same ends, than the appetencies themselves would be upon the old hypothesis. In this way of considering the subject, sensation supplies the place of foresight; but this is the effect of contrivance on the part of the Creator. Let it be allowed, for example, that the hen is induced to brood upon her eggs by the enjoyment or relief which, in the heated state of her abdomen, she experiences from the pressure of round smooth surfaces, or from the application of a temperate warmth. How comes this extraordinary heat or itching, or call it what you will, which you suppose to be the cause of the bird's inclination, to be felt, just at the time when the inclination itself is wanted; when it tallies so exactly with the internal constitution of the egg, and with the help which that constitution requires in order to bring it to maturity? In my opinion, this solution, if it be accepted as to the fact, ought to increase, rather than otherwise, our admiration of the contrivance. A gardener lighting up his stoves, just when he wants to force his fruit, and when his trees require the heat, gives not a more certain evidence of design. So again; when a male and female sparrow come together, they do not meet to confer upon the expediency of perpetuating their species. As an abstract proposition, they care not the value of a barley-corn, whether the species be perpetuated or not: they follow their sensations; and all those consequences ensue, which the wisest counsels could have dictated, which the most solicitous care of futurity, which the most anxious concern for the sparrow world could have produced. But how do these consequences ensue? The sensations, and the constitution upon which they depend, are as manifestly directed to the purpose which we see fulfilled by them; and the train of intermediate effects, as manifestly laid and planned with a view to that purpose; that is to say, design is as completely evinced by the phenomena, as it would be, even if we suppose the operations to begin, or to be carried on, from what some will allow to be alone properly called instincts, that is, from desires di

rected to a future end, and having no accomplishment or gratification distinct from the attainment of that end.

In a word; I should say to the patrons of this opinion, Be it so be it, that those actions of animals which we refer to instinct, are not gone about with any view to their consequences, but that they are attended in the animal with a present gratification, and are pursued for the sake of that gratification alone; what does all this prove, but that the prospection, which must be somewhere, is not in the animal, but in the Creator?

In treating of the parental affection in brutes, our business lies rather with the origin of the principle, than with the effects and expressions of it. Writers recount these with pleasure and admiration. The conduct of many kinds of animals towards their young, has escaped no observer, no historian of nature. "How will they caress them,' says Derham, “with their affectionate notes; lull and quiet them with their tender parental voice; put food into their mouths; cherish and keep them warm; teach them to pick, and eat, and gather food for themselves; and, in a word, perform the part of so many nurses, deputed by the Sovereign Lord and Preserver of the world, to help such young and shiftless creatures!" Neither ought it, under this head, to be forgotten, how much the instinct costs the animal which feels it; how much a bird, for example, gives up, by sitting upon her nest; how repugnant it is to her organization, her habits, and her pleasures. An animal, formed for liberty, submits to confinement in the very season when everything invites her abroad: what is more; an animal delighting in motion, made for motion, all whose motions are so easy and so free, hardly a moment, at other times, at rest, is, for many hours of many days together, fixed to her nest, as close as if her limbs were tied down by pins and wires. For my part, I never see a bird in that situation, but I recognise an invisible hand, detaining the contented prisoner from her fields and groves, for the purpose, as the event proves, the most worthy of the sacrifice, the most important, the most beneficial.

But the loss of liberty is not the whole of what the procreant bird suffers. Harvey tells us, that he has often found the female wasted to skin and bone by sitting upon her eggs.

One observation more, and I will dismiss the subject. The pairing of birds, and the non-pairing of beasts, forms a distinction between the two classes, which shows that the conjugal instinct is modified with a reference to utility