On the habits and instincts of animals / By William Swainson.

  • William Swainson
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the habits and instincts of animals / By William Swainson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nearest approach to reason, which had been domesti- cated from time immemorial. But this, if we except, perhaps, the elephant, is assuredly not the case. The ants and the bees, as we shall hereafter show, possess an instinct far above all other known animals ; yet they have never been domesticated, nor can we conceive how their admirable economy could be improved. The operations of their instincts appear to carry them no further than what is necessary to the well-being of each particular species, which every naturalist knows is more or less dissimilar. There are, indeed, a few anecdotes, which occasionally appear in our natural history and other periodicals, of such a marvellous nature, as to indicate reasoning faculties among brutes; but we look on these statements with the same degree of scepticism as those which vouch for living toads being inclosed in solid marble ;—for no real naturalist, scrupulously jealous of the greatest possible accuracy, has put them forward. Such, then, are the operations of instinct. In defining them, we have also given their ultimate results. They tend to nothing more than the economy of the present life: they have no relation to the improvement of exist- ing communities, or the transmission of knowledge to succeeding generations: each individual, however highly gifted by nature, or improved by art, passes away, and is forgotten. The end of its creation, in the economy of nature, is fulfilled: it has had all the enjoyment of animal life, which, from its very nature, it was alone capable of receiving ;—it followed its own appetites, its own wishes, and its own will. No consciousness of moral obligation or responsibility was given to it when alive, therefore there remains no ultimate object to be accomplished after its death. (12.) Let us now turn to that higher species of voli- tion, to which we assign the term of reason ; and in like manner consider its intention, its operation, and its ultimate results. We are free to confess that the higher and the lower faculties, viewed merely in some of their operations, appear so intimately blended, that
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