note testify. He can hardly keep up his race here in England; and is
accordingly very uncommon, while his two cousins, the willow wren and
the chiffchaff, who, like him, build for some mysterious reason domed
nests upon the ground, are stout, and busy, and numerous, and
thriving everywhere. And what he has gone through may be too much
for the poor wood wren's nerves; and he gives way; while willow wren,
black-cap, nightingale, who have gone by the same road and suffered
the same dangers, have stoutness of heart enough to throw off the
past, and give themselves up to present pleasure. Why not?--who
knows? There is labour, danger, bereavement, death in nature; and
why should not some, at least, of the so-called dumb things know it,
and grieve at it as well as we?

Why not?--Unless we yield to the assumption (for it is nothing more)
that these birds act by some unknown thing called instinct, as it
might be called x or y; and are, in fact, just like the singing birds
which spring out of snuff-boxes, only so much better made, that they
can eat, grow, and propagate their species. The imputation of acting
by instinct cuts both ways. We, too, are creatures of instinct. We
breathe and eat by instinct: but we talk and build houses by reason.
And so may the birds. It is more philosophical, surely, to attribute
actions in them to the same causes to which we attribute them (from
experience) in ourselves. 'But if so,' some will say, 'birds must
have souls.' We must define what our own souls are, before we can
define what kind of soul or no-soul a bird may or may not have. The
truth is, that we want to set up some 'dignity of human nature;' some
innate superiority to the animals, on which we may pride ourselves as
our own possession, and not return thanks with fear and trembling for
it, as the special gift of Almighty God. So we have given the poor
animals over to the mechanical philosophy, and allowed them to be