This, it should be observed, is a “ native ” instinct, and 
is surely conceived as being of use to animals, even when 
they are not in the service of man. But however this 
may be, the criticism of Mr. Romanes raises the question 
as to the universal opinion before the publication of 
The Origin of Species on two points. First, did all 
philosophers believe that instincts were of no primary 
use to the animals that possessed them ? Secondly, did 
all philosophers believe that man was the final cause of 
creation, and that all things were made for his especial 
benefit ? 
As to the first point, it is hardly conceivable that any 
one who has studied the phenomena of instincts, however 
cursorily or under whatever mistaken ideas, could doubt 
for one moment that they must, in the first place, have 
been of primary importance to their own possessors. But 
if evidence is required to show that long ago this opinion 
was held, we have only to refer to the pages of Kirby’s 
Bridgewater Treatise, in which he speaks of “ the infinite 
variety of instincts, and their nice and striking adaptation 
to the circumstances, wants and station of the several 
animals that are endowed with them.”* Dr. Roget, in 
his Bridgewater Treatise, bears testimony to the fact that 
the individual and the species are preserved not by “ the 
slow and uncertain calculations of prudence,” but by 
“ innate faculties, prompting by an unerring impulse to 
the performance of the actions required for those ends.”f 
“ The doctrine of Instincts,” says Archdeacon Paley, “ is 
that of appetencies, superadded to the constitution of an 
animal for the effectuating of a purpose beneficial to its 
race.”J 
* Vol. ii., p. 164. 
f Vol. ii., p. pi4. 
X Natural Theology, chapter xviii.