XII 



THE IGNORANCE OF INSTINCT 



The Sphex has just shown us with what infallible, 

 transcendent art she acts, guided by the unconscious 

 inspiration of instinct : she will now show how poor 

 she is in resources, how limited in intelligence, and 

 even illogical in cases somewhat out of her usual 

 line. By a strange contradiction, characteristic of the 

 instinctive faculties, with deep science is associated 

 ignorance not less deep. Nothing is impossible to 

 instinct, however great be the difficulty. In con- 

 structing her hexagonal cells with their floor of three 

 lozenge-shaped pieces, the bee resolves, with absolute 

 precision, the arduous problems of maximum and 

 minimum, to solve which man would need a powerful, 

 mathematical mind. Hymenoptera, whose larvae live 

 on prey, have methods in their murderous art hardly 

 equalled by those of a man versed in the most delicate 

 mysteries of anatomy and physiology. Nothing is 

 difficult to instinct so long as the action moves in the 

 unchanging groove allotted to the animal, but, again, 

 nothing is easy to instinct if the action deviates from 

 it. The very insect which amazes us and alarms us 

 by its high intelligence will, a moment later, astonish 



16-1 



