456 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1018. 



a high degree. This is the second domain of its psychic powers. 

 Here it is conscious and susceptible of perfecting by experience. As 

 I dare not designate this rudimentary aptitude by the name of intel- 

 ligence, a title too noble for it, I shall call it discernment.'''' But is 

 discernment in this sense not really a form of intelligence ? 



Such is the measure in which instinct and intelligence are combined 

 in animals. If, following Bergson, we admit that consciousness " is 

 proportional to the power of selection at the animal's disposal," it 

 will be quite evident that consciousness must be particularly ob- 

 scured in all purely instinctive acts, but that on the contrary it must 

 accompany all intelligent acts. Bergson, however, regards conscious- 

 ness in a peculiar light, since he considers it as " life projected through 

 matter," as the common source from which sprang in different direc- 

 tions both instinct and intelligence. This view leads us away from 

 the commonly accepted theory that consciousness must be considered 

 as that inmost luminary which enlightens our actions. It is possible, 

 even probable, that this kind of consciousness exists to a greater or 

 lesser extent in the animals. However, we can not know anything 

 about it, and we believe with Ed. Claparede that " the science of 

 animal psychology may and must scrutinize the problem of the 

 greater or less intelligence of animals without being concerned about 

 their consciousness." 



We discern intelligence in its simplest expression wherever we 

 notice a choice between the various alternatives offered by circum- 

 stances, and in one of its highest forms wherever we observe that 

 power of invention which, according to Bergson, enables the human 

 race to " manufacture artificial objects, more particularly to make 

 tools with which to make other tools and to vary their fabrication 

 indefinitely." These two extreme forms are naturally connected by a 

 series of links, and we know that the one as well as the other plays a 

 part in the behavior of Articulates. The latter of the two seems, 

 however, to be rather exceptional in our group, showing itself only 

 in the primitive state consisting of the use of foreign bodies as im- 

 plements. The tool used by AmmopMla urnaria is a small stone with 

 which, the female rams and packs the dirt that closes her burrow. 

 With certain ants of India {Oecophylla smaragdina) and of Brazil 

 (Camponotus texter) the instrument consists of the larva of the 

 species itself. Held between the mandibles of the workers, these 

 larvae by means of their thread glue and fasten edge to edge the 

 leaves of which the nest is constructed. The implement of the crabs 

 of the genus Melia, in the Indo-Pacific seas, is supplied by a delicate 

 sea-anemene. This is held between the pincers of the animal, which 

 probably uses the nettling exudations to paralyze its prey. 



Facts of this nature are rare in the world of Articulates, but they 

 have an important signM* ....... *a^ llr .„ n f ti 1P little stone is not yet 



