INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE. 657 



Now, such actions performed by raan would sliow high intelligence 

 and much experience ; and yet we cannot attribute such intelligence 

 to these insects, because their actions in other directions and under 

 other and new conditions exhibit but a very snuill amount of intelli- 

 gence ; we are compelled to attribute these wise actions to another 

 and somewhat diiFerent faculty, which by way of distinction we call 

 instinct. Let, us then, contrast these two faculties (if they may be so 

 called) and show their distinctive features : 



1. Intelligence %corJcs hy experience^ and is wholly dependent on 

 individual experience for the wisdom of its actions. Wisdom in this 

 case is a product of two factors, intelligence and individual experience. 

 Intelligence alone produces nothing. Experience alone is equally 

 valueless. With a given intelligence the product will vary as the 

 experience, with a given amount of experience the product will vary as 

 the intelligence. Thus intelligence works by experience to attain wise 

 results. On the contrary, instinct is wholly independent of individual 

 experience. The young bee or mud-wasp, untaught, works at once 

 without hesitation, with the greatest precision and in the wisest man- 

 ner, to accomplish the most marvelous results. Like the reflex func- 

 tion of the nervous system, and like the still lower organic functions 

 of secretion, excretion, circulation, respiration, etc., the wisdom and 

 precision of its actions seem to he theresidt of structure, though unlike 

 these the actions are not removed from the sphere of consciousness 

 and will, if we call it intelligence ; then it is not indimdual intelligence 

 but cosmic intelligence, or the laws of Nature working through inher- 

 ited brain-structure to produce wise results. 



2. Intelligence belongs to the individual, and is therefore variable, 

 i. e., different in different individuals, and also improvable in the life 

 of the individual by experience. Instinct belofigs to the sp>ecies, and is 

 therefore the same in all individuals and unimprovable with age and 

 experience. It is true that close observation would probably detect a 

 slight difference in the skill of different bees, and slight improvement 

 with age, in some more than others, but this must be accredited to 

 the individual, not to the inheiited element, i. e., to the small margin 

 of intelligence which undoubtedly exists in these animals. 



3. Instinct in its sphere is far ynore perfect and unerring than 

 intelligence. It makes no mistakes, because determined by structure, 

 not by imperfect knowledge. 



In a word, intelligent conduct is self-determined and becomes wise 

 by individual experience. Instinctive conduct is predetermined in 

 wisdom by brain-structure. The former is free, the latter is to a large 

 extent automatic ; the one is like the voluntary locomotion of the 

 higher animals, free to turn whither it likes, but liable to mistakes 

 and stumblings and hurtful falls ; the other like the motion of an 

 engine laid upon a track which bears it swiftly and surely to its des- 



tined goal. 



VOL. VII. 



