CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE 1XSTINCT1V1-. ISEHAVIOR OF ANTS. 



" Est sind keiiu- anderen als die Erscheinungen des thierischen Instinctes, 

 die fiir jeden nachdenkenden Menschen zu den allergrossten gehoren wahrer 

 Probirstein achter Philosophic." Schelling, " System der gesammten Philos- 

 ophic." I 15(1. 



"Der ln>tinkt ist nicht Resultat bewusster Ueberlegung, nicbt Folge der 

 korperlichen Organisation, nicht blosses Resultat eines in der Organisation des 

 Gehirns gelegenen Mechanismus, nicht Wirkung eines dem Geiste von aussen 

 angi'kU'bk'n toclten, seinem innersten Wesen fremden Mechanismus, sondern 

 sclbstcigcnc Leistung des Individuums, aus seinem innersten Wesen und Char- 

 akter entspringend." E. von Hartmann. " Philosophic des Unbewussten," Qth 

 ed.. 



If ants exhibited merely the reflexes, or such brief and simple 

 responses to sensory stimuli as we have been considering in the pre- 

 ceding chapter, their lives would flow on with the same monotonous 

 regularity as those of many other insects and the lower invertebrates 

 in general. In addition to these reflexes, however, ants manifest more 

 complicated trains of behavior, the so-called instincts ; and both these 

 and the reflexes may be affected with a certain modifiability or plasticity 

 which, in its highest manifestations, has been called intelligence. 

 Leaving for my last chapter a consideration of this latter aspect of 

 behavior, 1 shall here confine myself to the instincts. 



Many attempts have been made to define instinct, but it is evident 

 that none of these could be completely successful, because instinct 

 transcends intelligence and has its mainspring in the depths of the life- 

 process itself. Perhaps as good a formal definition as I am able to 

 give is the following: An instinct is a more or less complicated activity 

 manifested by an organism which is acting, first, as a whole rather than 

 ;i^ a part ; second, as the representative of a species rather than as an 

 individual; third, without previous experience; and fourth, with an 

 end or purpose of which it has no knowledge. This definition will 

 satisfy the person of scholastic mind, but to the biologist it is a mass 

 of obscurities ; for it is certain that the man lives not who can tell 

 where the whole begins and the part leaves off in a living organism, or 

 can frame a satisfactory definition of a living individual or a species ; 

 and the intellect abdicates when it is called upon to grasp an activity 

 that is unconsciously purposeful. 



In all probability these very obscurities have attracted many stu- 



518 



