Wasmann and
Bethe, two of the leading authorities on ants, take the negative
view; Forel claims that they show occasional traces of
intelligence. It is at all events clear that the enormous
majority of, if not all, their activities--and especially those
activities of the ant and the bee which chiefly impress the
imagination--are not intelligent, but instinctive actions. And
the second point to be noted is that the word "instinct," in the
old sense of some innate power or faculty directing the life of
an animal, has been struck out of the modern scientific
dictionary. The ant or bee inherits a certain mechanism of nerves
and muscles which will, in certain circumstances, act in the way
we call "instinctive." The problem is to find how this mechanism
and its remarkable actions were slowly evolved.
In view of the innumerable and infinitely varied forms of
"instinct" in the insect world we must restrict ourselves to a
single illustration--say, the social life of the ants and the
bees. We are not without indications of the gradual development
of this social life. In the case of the ant we find that the
Tertiary specimens--and about a hundred species are found in
Switzerland alone, whereas there are only fifty species in the
whole of Europe to-day-- all have wings and are, apparently, of
the two sexes, not neutral.
Pages:
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371