CHAPTER XXVIII. 



THE SENSATIONS OF ANTS. 



" II faut done, bon gre mal gre, etudier la psychologic et la physiologic en 

 rapport 1'une avec 1'autre, en comparant leurs resultats, en tachant de trouver 

 les relations les plus exactes possibles, entre leurs notions et les termes qui s'y 

 rapportent, meme au risque de retomber souvent dans Fanthropomorphisme 

 sans le vouloir. Si nous connaisons ce dernier danger, et si nous le combattons 

 sans relache, le corrigeant sans cesse, nous marcherons, d'erreur corrigee en 

 erreur corrigee, lentement mais surement vers la verite relative que seule nous 

 pouvons connaitre. Si pas contre, ne voyant qu'un cote de la question, nous 

 nous obstinons a vouloir d'un coup faire de la mecanique soi disant objective la 

 ou toutes les bases nous manquent pour le faire, nous tomberons dans 1'absurde 

 et n'arriverons a rien." Forel, " Sensations des Insectes," V, 1901. 



To close our survey of the ants without a more coherent treatment 

 of the subject of their behavior than is represented by the scattered 

 references to " reactions," ; ' habits " and " instincts " in the preceding 

 chapters, would be to turn aside from the very fons ct origo of our 

 interest in these insects. For structure and development, distribution 

 in time and space, and the multifarious ethological relationships we 

 have been considering are merely the more obvious aspects of an 

 intricate and subtle behavior that enables these creatures to lead their 

 balanced, but nevertheless plastic, social life amid an environment made 

 up of refractory matter and more or less indifferent or hostile organisms. 



In endeavoring to gain an insight into the behavior of any animal, 

 two courses are open to us. These may be designated as the intel- 

 lectual and the intuitional, and it depends on the temperament and 

 training of the observer which he will follow, or whether he will be 

 inclined to follow both. The intellectual course is the one usually 

 pursued by the scientist pure and simple, and is especially exalted by 

 those most thoroughly embued with the spirit of our laboratories, where 

 living organisms are best loved when they are dead, or, at any rate, 

 when they can be subjected to the methods of investigation that have 

 yielded such valuable results to the development of physics and chem- 

 istry. In this environment the intellect proceeds on her clean path, 

 according to her peculiar method, first cutting up the indiscerptible, 

 flowing process, which is the life of every organism, into stationary 

 concepts, and then combining these congealed and partial abstractions 

 into a system that will have " explanatory " value in obedience to 

 Goethe's well-known dictum : 



