ANIMAL AND RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 181 



of the marvels of development of the most differen 

 tiated structure from the germ-cell. 



Perplexity is increased by mixing up mental 

 characteristics and origin of the mental powers 

 with phenomena illustrative of animal instinct. It 

 is hopeless to attempt construction of a theory of the 

 industrial life exemplified in the bee-hive by supposing 

 that bees know and apply mathematical principles. 

 Just as unpromising is the supposition that ants have 

 taught their children how, in turn, they are to take 

 care of their own young ; or that these same insig 

 nificant creatures, swarming across the path before 

 your feet, have invented language, forestalling human 

 efforts in this direction. We have remarked the 

 guarded form in which Wallace makes reference to 

 the manifestations of intelligence, amounting in 

 some cases to distinct acts of reasoning in many 

 animals. But no one proposes to account for the 

 astonishing activity of insect life on the supposition 

 that bees and ants reason out their conclusions, as 

 men estimate engineering difficulties, and construct 

 machines to overcome them. Yet the perplexities 

 connected with insect life are such that Darwin is 

 induced to say, A little dose of judgment or reason, 

 as Pierre Huber expresses it, often comes into play, 

 even with animals low in the scale of Nature. 1 

 Huber is an authority in this department. There 

 is a delightful simplicity in this little dose/ applied 

 to a brain like a pin-point in its dimensions ; but the 

 playfulness of the remark tells how truly scientific 

 authorities have felt unable here to apply scientific 

 methods. The suggestion is of the dens ex machina 



1 Origin of Species, p. 191. 



