n THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 185 



consciousness of an insect acting by instinct. Evolu 

 tion does but sunder, in order to develop them to the 

 end, elements which, at their origin, interpenetrated 

 each other. More precisely, intelligence is, before 

 anything else, the faculty of relating one point of 

 space to another, one material object to another ; it 

 applies to all things, but remains outside them ; and 

 of a deep cause it perceives only the effects spread out 

 side by side. Whatever be the force that is at work 

 in the genesis of the nervous system of the caterpillar, 

 to our eyes and our intelligence it is only a juxta 

 position of nerves and nervous centres. It is true that 

 we thus get the whole outer effect of it. The Ammo- 

 phila, no doubt, discerns but a very little of that force, 

 just what concerns itself ; but at least it discerns it from 

 within, quite otherwise than by a process of knowledge 

 by an intuition (lived rather than represented)^ which 

 is probably like what we call divining sympathy. 



A very significant fact is the swing to and fro of 

 scientific theories of instinct, from regarding it as in 

 telligent to regarding it as simply intelligible, or, shall 

 I say, between likening it to an intelligence &quot; lapsed &quot; 

 and reducing it to a pure mechanism. 1 Each of these 

 systems of explanation triumphs in its criticism of the 

 other, the first when it shows us that instinct cannot be 

 a mere reflex, the other when it declares that instinct is 

 something different from intelligence, even fallen into 

 unconsciousness. What can this mean but that they 

 are two symbolisms, equally acceptable in certain 

 respects, and, in other respects, equally inadequate to 

 their object ? The concrete explanation, no longer 



1 See, in particular, among recent works, Bethe, &quot; Dttrfen wir den 

 Ameisen und Bienen psychische Qualitaten zuschreiben ? &quot; (Arch.f. d. ges. 

 Physiologie, 1898), and Forel, &quot; Un Aperc.u de psychologic compares&quot; 

 (Annfe psyctiologique, 1895). 



