| [No. 121] | Thursday, July 19, 1711 | Addison |
... Jovis omnia plena.
Virg.
As I was walking this Morning in the great Yard that belongs to my Friend's Country House, I was wonderfully pleased to see the different Workings of Instinct in a Hen followed by a Brood of Ducks. The Young, upon the sight of a Pond, immediately ran into it; while the Stepmother, with all imaginable Anxiety, hovered about the Borders of it, to call them out of an Element that appeared to her so dangerous and destructive. As the different Principle which acted in these different Animals cannot be termed Reason, so when we call it
Instinct
, we mean something we have no Knowledge of. To me, as I hinted in my last Paper, it seems the immediate Direction of Providence, and such an Operation of the Supreme Being, as that which determines all the Portions of Matter to their proper Centres.
modern Philosopher, quoted by Monsieur
Bayle