292 MENTAL FACULTIES SEC. 



and so on. In each single case again the threads which 

 connect the spokes to the frame must be adapted to the con- 

 ditions of the latter ; and lastly, it is known that the spider 

 not only in this regular work, but still more in repairing her 

 web, in doing which she fulfils the highest requirements of 

 mechanical adaptation, gives undoubted evidence of compli- 

 cated reflection. 



Of course those who attribute to animals neither intelligence 

 nor reason, but only instinct, will call that which I describe 

 as evidence of reflection, variation of instinct, or endeavour to 

 bring it within the conception of definitely directed instincts. 



But these facts only become comprehensible by the explan- 

 ation of instinct as inherited experience, i.e. as intelligent 

 and reasonable actions which have become automatic. I 

 fully admit that in the construction of a net or a honeycomb 

 various directions of instinct may have been developed, but 

 other actions of animals have not yet become purely instinc- 

 tive, and others again are exercised quite freely and spon- 

 taneously. But even spontaneous action in animals is often 

 only slightly removed from instinctive, as is shown by the 

 facts I have described concerning the chick, facts which 

 prove that these animals have become by inheritance capable 

 of making use of experience immediately in a surprising way. 

 Such an animal as this chick is extremely clever. I can 

 now add to the account already given, that when I had 

 fed it a single time, instead of on the table on which it was 

 usually fed, in front of the door of my study, to which a 

 bridge of considerable length leads from the garden, it came 

 regularly to this bridge expecting food. I am certain that 

 much which gives us the impression of pure instinct depends 

 on such a rapid employment of experience by animals. 



The mental activities of many animals are obviously very 

 limited in extent, but we must always remember that we 

 know in general much too little in detail of this mental life, 



