OE et Rae Fp ae CI, et 
21 
In dealing with the actions of living creatures it must not be 
forgotten that individuals of the same species often differ very 
materially in their intellectual powers. The familiar example of 
human beings may safely be carried downwards all through the 
lower stages of life. Some remarkable evidences of this will be 
found in examining experiments with bees. It does not follow 
that, because we find one animal doing a stupid thing, therefore all 
the animals of that species will show the like want of intelligence. 
On the contrary, we do find, in many cases, and may expect, on 
further experience, to find in all a gradation of intelligence from 
almost entire absence to a very remarkable amount of ingenuity. 
We cannot, however, but be struck with the large amount of what 
appears to us to be gross stupidity, and some examples of which I 
have given you, and all of which rnn so counter to the popular 
conception of instinct. On the other hand, we find innumer- 
able examples of the self-sacrificing virtues, especially in devotion 
to the young as well as in other forms. 
The ethics of the animal economy is a large and difficult 
question, and I have no intention of entering upon it here further 
than calling attention to that aspect of the matter. It is well worthy 
of careful study. For my part, I have seen no satisfactory solution 
of the question. To me it seems very difficult to deal with the case 
I have quoted of the wasp Eumenes. It seems shocking that a 
mass of caterpillars should be kept alive, only just sufficiently in- 
jured to prevent them escaping or injuring the young grub, and 
then to be gradually eaten up alive. However low the nervous 
system of the caterpillars may be, it seems impossible to get away 
from the conviction that there is much suffering endured. 
In his article on Instinct in the Encyclopedia Brittannica, 
Romanes says, “ Instincts probably arose in one or other of two 
ways.” First, by the effect of habit in successive generations, 
mental activities which were originally intelligent become, as it 
were, stereotyped into permanent instincts ; secondly, by natural 
selection, or survival of the fittest, continuously preserving actions 
which, although never intelligent, yet happens to have been of 
benefit to the animals which first chanced to perform them ; or, 
thirdly, the two blended. And that “ Instincts are not immutably 
fixed, but on the contrary, are eminently variable.” 
I need scarcely say that this paper is, to a large extent, a com- 
pilation from the works of Romanes, Lubbock, and Buchner. The 
onlymeritI can claim (if merit there be) is the putting of it together 
and calling your attention to a subject upon which I find most 
men’s minds are made up, but unfortunately in a manner quite 
contrary to the facts, so far as those facts are at present ascer- 
tained. In this case, as in so many others, the Iconoclast has first to 
break down the idols and make a clear space for unprejudiced in- 
vestigation. Then the beginnings of real knowledge make their 
