contrived in a cage; a goldfinch may be trained to draw water in an ivory bucket, and to fire off a pistol; a parrot is taught to say "pretty poll," and a variety of other expressions. The intelligence and affection of the horse have often been the theme of admiration; but perhaps no animal is more in sympathy with man than the dog. The variety of his adaptations, the wide diversity and the instincts of the different species of dogs, the keenness of his perception, the tenacity of his memory, the strength and durability of his affection for his master, and his faithfulness, are subjects that challenge our admiration as well as our study.

But the question before us now is not the keenness or the utility, but the improvability of instinct. In all these cases there appears, in some sort, a capability of being taught and of improvement. But it should be noted that in every department of nature there are to be found individual departures from the established type. These are the prodigies, the wonders. One horse, in addition to the ordinary instincts of his race, may possess some peculiar instinct leading him to perform certain actions that seem anomalous; but beyond that he is only a common horse. Among dogs, one is by instinct a shepherd's dog, another a pointer, another a rat-terrier, and so on. In these departments they display wonderful skill and utility; but attempt to convert the pointer into a shepherd's dog, or the ratterrier into a pointer, and you will soon find that you might as well have undertaken the conversion of a sheep or a calf. There are anomalies, and, indeed, monstrosities, of instinct as well as of bodily form. It is said that dogs have been known to utter human words.* So, on the other hand, instances have occurred-I knew one, the case of a young man-in which, from some strange maternal impres

Turner's Sacred History, I, 280.

sion, the individual, in the midst of his human talk, would break out, whenever he became excited, into the sudden, sharp, quick bark of the dog. These facts demonstrate peculiarities-monstrosities, if you please-in congenital organization; but by no means do they imply improvability in the instinct of the animal race, at least not such an improvability as would ally instinct to intellect.

Then, again, it should be borne in mind that it is only the individual bird or beast that acquires new art or skill. There the process ends. Not one of them manifests the capability or the inclination to impart this special acquisition to its fellow. It is not even transmitted to their offspring, either as an improved instinct or by instruction, from the parents. The offspring, instead of beginning where the parents left off, begin precisely where the parents did before them. Or, if these finer qualities of instinct are handed down, it is only as the qualities of the grape or the strawberry, improved by the culture of man, are perpetuated. It is not an intelligence, nor any approximation to an intelligence; but it is as clearly marked with all the distinctive traits of instinct as before.

Nor should it be deemed surprising that there are differences in the quality of instinct in different animals of the same species, just as a finer and more perfect organization in the human species afford finer development of mental power; and so, on the other hand, just as the appreciable qualities of matter, from causes inscrutable, are widely different in the same species. One piece of iron may be more malleable, one more flexible, and one more susceptible of high magnetic power; one kind may be manufactured into the finest steel, and gleam forth in the polished saber, the other is fit only for the huge anchor. All these things demonstrate incidental departure from the original type; they demonstrate a variety of adaptation.

But they no more demonstrate that instinct can grow up into intellect than that the beech may become an oak, the pig an elephant, or the ape a man. The boundary that parts man, in his physical organization, from the brute creation, is not more clearly defined, nor more utterly im passable, than that which separates the human soul from the animal instinct in all its varied forms and supposed improvabilities.

IV. INSTINCT IS WITHOUT FORETHOUGHT.

We are here brought to another line of demarkation be tween the animal instinct and the human soul. Instinct is without forethought on the part of its subject. Mr. Paley makes it the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of instinct, that it acts "prior to experience and independent of instruction." This was justly criticised by Lord Brougham as leaving out that vital element of distinction between soul and instinct, that in the former there is ever a conscious foresight and intention, which, at least, in many cases in the latter—even in its highest manifestations-are evidently wanting.

The insect, for instance, plies her constructive art when it is certain there can be no intention as to results, because there is an absolute ignorance of what results are to follow. Lord Brougham, in his Dialogues on Instinct, says of the bee, "I see her doing certain things which are manifestly to produce an effect she can know nothing about. For example, making a cell, and furnishing it with carpets and with liquid, fit to hold and to cherish safely a tender grub, and knowing nothing, of course, about grubs, or that any grub is to come, or that any such use, perhaps any use at all, is ever to be made of the work she is about. Indeed, I see another insect-the solitary wasp-bring a given

number of small grubs and deposit them in a hole which she has made over her egg-just grubs enough to maintain the worm that egg will produce when hatched-and yet this wasp never saw an egg produce a worm, nor ever saw a worm-nay, is to be dead long before the worm can be in existence; and, moreover, she never has in any way tasted or used those grubs, or used the hole she made, except for the benefit of the prospective worm she is never to see. In all these cases, then, the animal works positively without knowledge, and in the dark. She also works without designing any thing, and yet she works to a certain defined and important purpose."

Such is animal instinct, even in its highest efforts, a force, intentionless, and blindly working in the dark. If it works beneficent results, in the main, it is not because the results are foreseen and sought after; but for the same reason that the elective and cohesive forces among particles of matter effect useful combinations; they are guided by laws ordained and carried into force by the Infinite Mind.

V. INSTINCT CONTROLLED BY DIVINE INTELLIGENCE.

It will be perceived that we do not question the presence of intelligence. But whose intelligence is it? Not the insect's; for his is obviously a blind instrumentality. To make this more apparent, notice the hexagonal structure of the bee's cell. Here is the utmost possible economy of space, combining the least expenditure of wax. Man has found this out by the most careful and complicated mathematical calculations. Is it not certain, then, that with the bee, it is an unintelligent and controlled agency? This is all the more apparent from the fact that the young bee, uninstructed and without experience, is equally skillful in the perfection of its angles and the finish of its architecture.

The intelligence here manifested, then, is not in the animal. That is merely an unthinking instrument, working under a higher guidance-the guidance of the Divine Mind. Mr. Pope pertinently expresses this idea in his well-known couplet:

"And reason raise o'er instinct as you can,

In this 'tis God that acts, in that 't is man."-ESSAY.

Dr. Tulloch states this argument with great force: "We have here a mental process of a very high order; we must find a mental agent. Such an agent we do not find in the animal. It appears, on the contrary, from all evidence, to be a mere blind instrument. We are forced, therefore, to admit a higher agent. This agent can only be the Supreme Intelligence every-where present in creation."*

There is, then, a distinct line of demarkation between the human soul and the animal mind. Till we find the brute creation exhibiting some of these manifestations of an indwelling soul-reason, conscience, intellect; till we find them cherishing and cultivating moral feelings and motives, exercising moral virtues and charities, recognizing and obeying the law of conscience, recognizing the being and moral government of God; and, in fine, cherishing the hopes and expectations of another life-we must be compelled to recognize a radical and eternal distinction between the human soul and the brute instinct.

VI. CONCLUDING SUGGESTIONS.

The theme here presented, and the lines of distinction drawn, are pregnant with suggestive lessons concerning the Divine economy, and affecting every line of duty.

1. If mere instinct had been given, there would have been a wonderful waste of skill and adaptations in the material

*Theism, p. 232.