The reader is intreated carefully to attend to this definition of
_instinctive actions_, lest by using the word instinct without adjoining
any accurate idea to it, he may not only include the natural desires of
love and hunger, and the natural sensations of pain or pleasure, but the
figure and contexture of the body, and the faculty of reason itself under
this general term.

II. We experience some sensations, and perform some actions before our
nativity; the sensations of cold and warmth, agitation and rest, fulness
and inanition, are instances of the former; and the repeated struggles of
the limbs of the foetus, which begin about the middle of gestation, and
those motions by which it frequently wraps the umbilical chord around its
neck or body, and even sometimes ties it on a knot; are instances of the
latter. Smellie's Midwifery, (Vol. I. p. 182.)

By a due attention to these circumstances many of the actions of young
animals, which at first sight seemed only referable to an inexplicable
instinct, will appear to have been acquired like all other animal actions,
that are attended with consciousness, _by the repeated efforts of our
muscles under the conduct of our sensations or desires_.

The chick in the shell begins to move its feet and legs on the sixth day of
incubation (Mattreican, p. 138); or on the seventh day, (Langley);
afterwards they are seen to move themselves gently in the liquid that
surrounds them, and to open and shut their mouths, (Harvei, de Generat. p.
62, and 197. Form de Poulet. ii. p. 129). Puppies before the membranes are
broken, that involve them, are seen to move themselves, to put out their
tongues, and to open and shut their mouths, (Harvey, Gipson, Riolan,
Haller). And calves lick themselves and swallow many of their hairs before