origin, education, and migration of this singular animal, is a history of a succession of instincts, the more remarkable, because in many respects contrary to the usual order of nature. PHYS.—I have been accustomed to refer many of the supposed instincts of animals, such as migrations, building nests, and selection of food, to imitation; but, I confess, I cannot explain the last fact you have brought forward on this principle. Pray, Ornither, let me state your view, as I understand it, that we may not differ as to the meaning of language. I conclude you adopt Hartley’s view of association, that the motions of the muscles in man are first automatic, and become voluntary by association; and that reason is the application of voluntary motions for a particular end. For instance: a child is not afraid of fire, but, bringing its hand near the fire, it is burnt, and the convulsions of the muscles produced by the pain ends in removing the hand from the source of pain. These motions by association are made voluntary; and after this experiment he avoids the fire by _reason_, and takes care always to perform those motions which remove his limbs from this destructive agent. But in contrasting instinct with this slow process, you would say, most animals, without having felt the effects of fire, have an innate dread of it; and in the same way, without having been taught, or experienced pleasure or pain from the object, young ducks seek the water, young chickens avoid it: their organs have a fitness or unfitness for certain functions, and they use them for these functions without education. In short, the instinctive application of the organ is independent of experience, and forms part of a train of pure sensations. ORN.—I have no objection to the statement you make of my view of the subject; but I certainly should give to it a little more refinement and generality. In all the results of reason, ideas are concerned but never in those of instinct. Without memory there can be no reason; but in instinct nothing can be traced but pure sensation. POIET.—Though in the animal world no ideas seem connected with instincts, yet they are all intended for specific and intelligent ends. Thus the swallow travels to a country where flies are found; the salmon migrates from the sea to the sources of fresh rivers, where its eggs may receive a supply of aerated water, and without this migration the race would be extinct: and in this way all the instincts of animals may be referred to intelligence, which, though not belonging to the animal, must be attributed to the Divine Mind. Is it not then reasonable to refer instinct to the immediate impulse of the Author of Nature upon his creatures? His omnipresence and omnipotence cannot be doubted, and to the infinite mind the past, the present, and the future are alike; and creative and conservative power must equally belong to it.