The celebrated Doctor Erasmus Darwin gave, as an
illustration of this view, his opinion that the young of animals know
how to swallow from their experience of swallowing _in utero_. Without
going into any refutation of this position, we would only remark, in
passing, that the act of swallowing is not an instinctive action at
all, but a purely mechanical one. Would not Doctor Darwin have rejoiced
greatly, if he could have brought to the support of his theory the
observation of our own great naturalist, Agassiz, who, knowing the
savage snap of one of the large, full-grown Testudinata, is said to
have asserted, that, under the microscope, he has seen the juvenile
turtle snapping precociously _in embryo_?
But not only is instinct prior to all experience, it is even superior
to it, and often leads animals to disregard it,--the spontaneous
impulse which Nature has given them being their best guide. The
carrier-pigeon or the bird of passage, taken a long distance from home
by a circuitous route, trusting to this "pilot-sense," flies back in a
straight course; and the hound takes the shortest way home through
fields where he has never previously set foot.
The existence of instinct prior to all experience or instruction, and
its perfection in the beginning, render cultivation and improvement not
only unnecessary, but impossible.
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