1907.] Wheeler, The Polymorphism of Ants. 89' 



as the much larger and more vigorous queens are known to fast while estab- 

 lishing their colonies. The larvse of ants, too, are known to remain alive in 

 the nests for months without growing. And even when food is abundant 

 the workers appropriate very little of it to their individual maintenance but 

 distribute it freely among their sister workers, the brood and queen. It 

 is not improbable, moreover, that the single instinct peculiar to work- 

 ers, the instinct to leave the nest and forage, is the direct result of a chronic 

 state of hunger. 



Undoubtedly such physiological states are neither more nor less mysteri- 

 ous than those of man and the higher animals, in which they are universally 

 recognized as leading to changes in the instinctive and emotional life of the 

 individual. We may not only concede the existence of physiological states 

 in the above and many other cases, but we may also admit that this conces- 

 sion is favorable to the hypothesis of psychophysical parallelism. On look- 

 ing deeper into the matter, however, w^e find that our knowledge of the 

 physiological states, and especially of their precise connection with the 

 instincts, is extremely vague and unsatisfactory. Furthermore, we are com- 

 pelled to confess that even the simplest jjhysiological reaction, the simplest 

 reflex depending on the simplest of physiological states, such as the general 

 irritability of all living matter, still involves a non-mechanical or teleologi- 

 cal and therefore a psychological factor, to the understanding of which the 

 hj-pothesis of psychophysical parallelism contributes nothing. The inter- 

 pretation of organic behavior as the result of "trial and error" seems to have 

 a value in indicating that the teleological factor is a blind activity groping 

 for the means with which to supply an organic need. But not only is this 

 conception borrowed from psychology but it is thoroughly teleological, since 

 the eventual selection and retention on the part of the organism of the par- 

 ticular mode of reaction best suited to supply its needs, is incapable of a 

 mechanical explanation. Of course, 'teleology' as applied to biological 

 phenomena must not be understood in the sense of an altruistic or external 

 teleology like the 'design' of theologians but is, as Pauly has shown,^ an 

 immanent and egotistical principle capable of great simplification in the 

 lower biological units like the cells, without losing its essentially pur- 

 posive character. 



Driesch,^ in his attempt to establish the autonomy of the vital processes on 

 the basis of regulatory phenomena in ontogeny, says: "A special problem 

 which is calculated to lead to a parallelism between the instincts and on- 

 togeny, may be briefly mentioned in conlcusion : the course of ontogeny may 



1 Darwinismus and Lamarckismus, loc. cit., pp. 15-22. 



2 Die "Seele" als Elementarer Naturfaktor, Leipzig, Wilhelm Engelraaiin, 1903, p. 26. 



