43 8 Animal Life and Intelligence. 



out the intelligent co-operation of the organisms which 

 possess them, why not some of the highly purposive 

 activities ? > 



And here the disciple of the school of Professor Weis- 

 mann will echo and extend the question, and will say, 

 " Yes ! why not all instinctive activities ? You are ready to 

 admit," he will continue, "that many instincts, wonderfully 

 purposive in their nature, are of primary origin, that is due 

 to natural selection ; why, then, invoke any other mode of 

 origin ? If lapsed intelligence be excluded in these cases, 

 why introduce it at all ? Why not admit, what our theory 

 of heredity demands, that * ' all instinct is entirely due to 

 the operation of natural selection, and has its foundation, 

 not upon inherited experiences, but upon the variations of 

 the germ ' ? " 



Professor Weismann's contention needs much more 

 serious consideration than that of Professor Eimer. I 

 think there is force in the a priori argument (as an a priori 

 argument) that since very complex instincts are probably 

 of primary origin, there is no a priori necessity for the 

 introduction of the hypothesis of lapsed intelligence. Let 

 me first illustrate this further. 



A certain beetle (Sitaris) lays its eggs at the entrance 

 of the galleries excavated by a kind of bee (Anthophord) , 

 each gallery leading to a cell. The young larvae are 

 hatched as active little insects, with six legs, two long 

 antennae, and four eyes, very different from the larvae of 

 other beetles. They emerge from the egg in the autumn, 

 and remain in a sluggish condition till the spring. At that 

 time (in April) the drones of the bee emerge from the 

 pupae, and as they pass out through the gallery the sitaris 

 larvae fasten upon them. There they remain till the 

 nuptial flight of the anthophora, when the larva passes 

 from the male to the female bee. Then again they await 

 their chance. The moment the bee lays an egg, the sitaris 

 larva springs upon it. " Even while the poor mother is 

 carefully fastening up her cell, her mortal enemy is be- 



* Weismann, " On Heredity," p. 91. 



