has shown us clearly what we ought to
think, he stops short suddenly on religious grounds. It is incredible
that the writer who at the very commencement of his work makes man take
his place among the animals, and who sees a subtle gradation extending
over all living beings "from the most perfect creature"--who must be
man--"to the most entirely inorganic substance"--I say it is incredible
that such a writer should not see that he had made out a stronger case
in favour of the reason of animals than against it.

According to him, the test whether a thing is to have such and such a
name is whether it looks fairly like other things to which the same name
is given; if it does, it is to have the name; if it does not, it is not.
No one accepted this lesson more heartily than Dr. Darwin, whose shrewd
and homely mind, if not so great as Buffon's, was still one of no common
order. Let us see the view he took of this matter. He writes:--

"If we were better acquainted with the histories of those insects which
are formed into societies, as the bees, wasps, and ants, I make no doubt
but we should find that their arts and improvements are not so similar
and uniform as they now appear to us, but that they arose in the same
manner from experience and tradition, as the arts of our own species;
though their reasoning is from fewer ideas, is busied about fewer
objects, and is executed with less energy."[79]

And again, a little later:--

"According to the late observations of Mr. Hunter, it appears that
beeswax is not made from the dust of the anthers of flowers, which they
bring home on their thighs, but that this makes what is termed
bee-bread, and is used for the purpose of feeding the bee-maggots; in
the same way butterflies live on honey, but the previous caterpillar
lives on vegetable leaves, while the maggots of large flies require
flesh for their food. What induces the bee, who lives on honey, to lay
up vegetable powder for its young? What induces the butterfly to lay its
eggs on leaves when itself feeds on honey?... If these are not
deductions from their own previous experience or observation, all the
actions of mankind must be resolved into instincts."[80]

Or again:--

"Common worms stop up their holes with leaves or straws to prevent the
frost from injuring them, or the centipes from devouring them. The
habits of peace or the stratagems of war of these subterranean nations
are covered from our view; but a friend of mine