Question of Origin. 147 



ends in the best manner. If all this comes from 

 Intelligence in the actor, he is certainly of high 

 rank. 



Among all the animals thus far mentioned, the 

 community might be considered an entirely acci- 

 dental thing; though in this case, the organization 

 of the community, manifested in the appointment 

 of sentinels and the notes of alarm, must be consid- 

 ered the complicated mechanism of Instinct in 

 many, working together for the good of the indi- 

 viduals composing the community; or, if the or- 

 ganization be regarded as the outgrowth of expe- 

 rience and the result of contrivance to meet the 

 exigencies of the community, we must be ready to 

 concede to all these animals as well as to the Bea- 

 ver, a high degree of Intelligence and the power of 

 adapting means to ends as perfectly as is ever done 

 among men for such purposes ; and we must also grant 

 them high powers of generalization and induction 

 and as plain principles of prudence, as men ordina- 

 rily manifest. Nor does it change the question to 

 say that this provision made by flocks is now me- 

 chanical, but the result of habits acquired gradual- 

 ly long ago under conditions of danger and need. 

 If there is found among any species of social ani- 

 mals an organization by which, as a community, 

 they are provided for or guarded against danger by 

 sentinels and signals, which can be referred to their 

 Intelligence at all, as a system marked out by them 

 from the comprehension and adoption of a plan, 

 then that plan was worked out by the flock which 

 we see before us, or it was worked out by some in- 



