HKB
the identity of this faculty with reason, and maintain that all the actions of animals are the result of invention and experience;--an opinion maintained with considerable plausibility by Dr. Darwin.
Perhaps the most ready and certain mode of coming to a conclusion in this intricate enquiry will be by the apparently circuitous route of determining first, what we do not mean by the word. Now we certainly do not mean, in the use of the term, any act of the vital power in the production or maintenance of an organ: nobody thinks of saying that the teeth grow by instinct, or that when the muscles are increased in vigour and size in consequence of exercise, it is from such a cause or principle. Neither do we attribute instinct to the direct functions of the organs in providing for the continuance and sustentation of the whole co-organized body. No one talks of the liver secreting bile, or of the heart acting for the propulsion of the blood, by instinct. Some, indeed, have maintained that breathing, even voiding the excrement and urine, are instinctive operations; but surely these, as well as the former, are automatic, or at least are the necessary result of the organization of the parts in and by which the actions are produced. These instances seem to be, if I may so say, below instinct. But again, we do not attribute instinct to any actions preceded by a will conscious of its whole purpose, calculating its effects, and predetermining its consequences, nor to any exercise of the intellectual powers, of which the whole scope, aim, and end are intellectual. In other terms, no man, who values his words, will talk of the instinct of a Howard, or of the instinctive operations of a Newton or Leibnitz, in those sublime efforts, which ennoble and cast a lustre, not less on the individuals than on the whole human race.
To what kind or mode of action shall we then look for the legitimate application of the term? In answer to this query, we may, I think, without fear of the consequences, put the following cases as exemplifying and justifying the use of the term Instinct in an appropriate sense. First: when there appears an action, not included either in the mere functions of life, acting within the sphere of its own organismus; nor yet an action attributable to the intelligent will or reason; yet, at the same time, not referable to any particular organ,--we then declare the presence of an Instinct. We might illustrate this in the instance of a bull-calf butting before he has horns, in which the action can have no reference to its internal economy, to the presence of a particular organ, or to an intelligent will. Secondly, likewise (if it be not indeed included in the first), we attribute Instinct where the organ is present; if only the act is equally anterior to all possible experience on the part of the individual agent, as for instance, when the beaver employs its tail for the construction of its dwelling; the tailor-bird its bill for the formation of its pensile habitation; the spider its spinning organ for fabricating its artfully woven nets, or the viper its poison fang for its defence. And lastly, generally, where there is an act of the whole body as one animal, not referable to a will conscious of its purpose, nor to its mechanism, nor to a habit derived from experience, nor previous frequent use. Here with most satisfaction, and without doubt of the propriety of the word, we declare an Instinct; as examples of which, we may adduce the migratory habits of birds; the social instincts of the bees, the construction of their habitations, composed of cells formed with geometrical precision, adapted in capacity to different orders of the society, and forming storehouses for containing a supply of provisions;--not to mention similar instances in wasps, ants, termites; and the endless contrivances for protecting the future progeny.