53 ANTS. 



fact, been inclined t<> regard it as a brilliant manifestation of the prin- 

 ciple conceived to lie at the heart of his particular metaphysical 

 system. Thus Schopenhauer and many of his followers have regarded 

 instinct as a vivid revelation of the " will to live," and von Hartmann 

 finds in it a -triking activity of the "unconscious." More recently 

 r.ergson has defined it as " divinatory sympathy." This is, of course, 

 in no sense a scientific definition, but it suggests an interesting line of 

 reflection. May it not enable us to understand why ants live as para- 

 sites on particular hosts, tolerate particular myrmecophiles or attend 

 certain aphids and Lycsenid larvae? On any other view these relation- 

 ships, in which one organism acts as if it had an intimate and innate 

 knowledge of the structure and activities of another, seem to depend 

 too much on accident or chance. Bergson's conception may also 

 explain why the investigator who puts himself into sympathetic rapport 

 with an animal is more likely to interpret its behavior correctly than 

 one who uses it merely as so much material for the solution of some 

 laboratory problem. 



