By _reason_, I mean the power of making deductions from previous experience or observation, and, thereby of adapting means to ends. _Instinct_ I regard as a disposition and power to perform certain actions in the same uniform manner, without reference either to observation or experience. Those who have attended to this subject, will be aware that _insect reason_ as above defined, is more restricted in its functions than _the reason of man_; to which is superadded the power of distinguishing between the true and the false, and, according to some metaphysicians, between right and wrong. Reason, in man, has a regular growth, and a slow progression; all the arts he practises evince skill and dexterity, proportioned to the pains which have been taken in acquiring them. In the lower links of creation, but little of this gradual improvement is observable; their powers carry them almost directly to their object. They are perfect, as +Bacon+ says, in all their members and organs from the very beginning. "Far different Man, to higher fates assign'd. Unfolds with tardier step his Proteus mind, With numerous Instincts fraught, that lose their force Like shallow streams, divided in their course; Long weak, and helpless, on the fostering breast, In fond dependence leans the infant guest. Till Reason ripens what young impulse taught. And builds, on sense, the lofty pile of thought; From earth, sea, air, the quick perceptions rise, And swell the mental fabric to the skies." +Evans.+ "Every manufacturing art," says +Dr. Reid+, "was invented by some one man, successively improved and perfected by others; and when thus perfected, known only by those to whom it has been taught: while in the arts of animals no individual can claim the invention. Every animal of the species has equal skill from the beginning, without teaching, without experience, or habit." "Both Instinct and Reason," says +Dr. Evans+, "appear to lose their intensity, in proportion as their rays diverge from their proper focus; and as they are less frequently aroused to action. A domesticated fowl is furnished with the same apparatus as her wild sisters on the waste, for rendering her feathers impenetrable to water: yet, living principally under cover, she secretes much less of the oily fluid, destined for that purpose, and makes, when accidentally wet, a most ridiculous appearance. The force of instinctive propensities, when directed to one object, and uninfluenced by reason, is strongly exemplified in _the idiot bee-eater of Selborne_, mentioned by +Mr. White+, in his _History of Selborne_. The collected powers of reason, when concentred in a single focus, is no less finely instanced in the immortal +Newton+." To those readers who have not seen Mr. White's account of the bee-eater, the following abstract of it may prove acceptable.