500 PSYCHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



apparent choice is no choice, but iron necessity, which rules the life of 

 all organisms, and which endeavours to dominate in the life of man 7 

 wherein it at first indeed acts promotive, but subsequently chiefly 

 obstructive and restrictive. 



285. 



But we, nevertheless, observe phenomena in many animals, and also 

 in insects, which appear to be the result of a free and rational consi- 

 deration, and of a certain degree of reflection ; indeed experience, 

 recollection, and memory are likewise perceived in them. 



The reflection of insects consists in the choice of the best means to 

 attain the object. There is nothing remarkable or astounding in this 

 when we admit that nature for the exercise of every function of the 

 insect has prescribed to it the way, and that we therefore observe all 

 insects invariably follow this prescribed path. But there are facts 

 which cannot be made to harmonise with this prescribed course. For 

 instance, it is well known that when bees in the construction of their 

 combs meet with objects that obstruct their progress in a right line, they 

 avoid them by the change of its direction, before the comb touches the 

 object, therefore by the immediate cessation of the continuation of the 

 work in that direction. Darwin observed a sand-wasp (Sphex sabulosd) 

 which wished to carry off a large fly that it had caught, but as it 

 violently fluttered with its wings, and so hindered her own progress, 

 she bit off its wings, and then flew off with it unimpeded. We must, 

 in these cases, as in the organs of the body and their functions there is- 

 exhibited a certain faculty of adaptation to a determinate purpose, as, for 

 example, the alternating secretion of one instead of the other, of the 

 intestine instead of the skin, in rheumatic affections, &c., admit also of 

 an adaptation of the instinct to new purposes, which expresses itself in 

 the recognition of the necessity of a change of the function yet in action 

 before the obstruction which obligates it absolutely obtrudes. It is 

 evident that this recognition is a purely intellectual activity, which 

 appears to contradict the prescribed necessity in the functions of 

 animals. But this contradiction is only apparent, for nature has also 

 prescribed the choice of the most serviceable means to the end, and 

 this choice presumes a knowledge of difficulties and hindrances. Hence 

 the instinct of the animal is competent to a partial quitting of the 

 prescribed circle as soon as extraneous phenomena intrude into the 

 actions of insects, which likewise lie beyond the circle of their usual 



