3. Some animals have the power of modifying the special conception, when circumstances arise which prevent its being carried out in the usual way; and of realizing it in a great many different ways, on as many different occasions. And their work, on each of these occasions, is as perfect as in their carrying out the ordinary form of the conception. I beg leave to call the principle, by which they see thus how to shape their course so perfectly under new circumstances—intuition. To instance it, there is a beetle called the rhynchites betulæ. Its habit is, towards the end of May, to cut the leaves of the betula alba, or betula pubescens, into slips, which it rolls up into funnel-shaped chambers, which form singularly convenient cradles for its eggs. This is done after one pattern; and one may suppose it the mechanical realization of an inborn idea, as long as the leaf is perfect in shape. But if the leaf is imperfect, intuition steps upon the scene to aid the insect to cut its coat after its cloth. The sections made are then seen to vary with the varying shape of the leaf. Many different sections made by the insect were accurately drawn by a German naturalist, Dr. Debey. He submitted them for examination to Professor Heis of Aix-la-Chapelle. Upon carefully studying them, Dr. Heis found these cuttings of the leaves, in suitableness to the end proposed, even to the minutest technical detail, to be in accordance with calculations compassable only through the higher mathematics, which, till modern times, were unknown to human intelligence. Such is the marvellous power of “intuition,” displayed by certain insects. I know not how to define it but as a power of immediate reference to absolute truth, evinced by the insect in carrying out its little plans. It is evident that the insect uses the same power in realizing its ordinary special conception, when the result displays equal perfectness. And the question even crosses one’s mind, Are the seemingly arbitrary plans really arbitrary?—may they not equally represent a highest type of design? But, be that as it may, the intuition of insects, as we now apprehend it, no longer stands an isolated phenomenon. The lucid cataleptic cannot less directly communicate with the source of truth, as she proves by foreseeing future events.