46 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



As worms are not guided by special instincts in each 

 particular case, though possessing a general instinct to 

 plug up their burrows, and, as chance is excluded, the 

 next most probable conclusion seems to be that they try 

 in many different ways to draw in objects, and at last suc- 

 ceed in some one way. But it is surprising that an ani- 

 mal so low in the scale as a worm should have the capacity 

 for acting in this manner, as many higher animals have 

 no such capacity. 



p n Mr. Romanes, who has specially studied the 



minds of animals, believes that we can safely 

 infer intelligence only when we see an individual profit- 

 ing by its own experience. Now, if worms try to drag 

 objects into their burrows first in one way and then in 

 another, until they at last succeed, they profit at least in 

 each particular instance by experience. 



p One alternative alone is left, namely, that 



worms, although standing low in the scale of 

 organization, possess some degree of intelligence. This 

 will strike every one as very improbable ; but it may be 

 doubted whether we know enough about the nervous sys- 

 tem of the lower animals to justify our natural distrust 

 of such a conclusion. "With respect to the small size of 

 the cerebral ganglia, we should remember what a mass of 

 inherited knowledge, with some power of adapting means 

 to an end, is crowded into the minute brain of a worker- 

 ant. 



