ANIMAL AND RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 187 



deep into the very centre of the bud, so that the eggs 

 will reach the exact spot, and here the necessary 

 conditions for its development alone exist. 1 This 

 is one of the most striking examples which can be 

 selected in illustration of the provision made by in 

 sects for development of their young. Judged by 

 the analogies of human conduct, we should regard it 

 as an example of provision and forethought ; but the 

 insect s conduct is independent of experience, the 

 skill and care being manifested only when maturity 

 prepares for functions of reproduction. The activity 

 is as clearly distinct from intelligent action, as it is 

 from mechanical. The young mother provides for 

 activity of the larvae just as if its conditions were fore 

 known. When we attribute her action to instinct, 

 we mean that it cannot be accounted for by appetite, 

 such as hunger which impels her to appropriate 

 food for her own want. Her feeling and action, in 

 this case, belong exclusively to the state of maturity, 

 being incidental to the period when her eggs are to 

 be deposited. Under a powerful impulse characteristic 

 of her state, involving special and periodic phases of 

 sensibility, involving inducement towards activity in 

 a single direction, she acts as if intelligence and 

 purpose were present, accomplishing what intelligence 

 could not achieve. Impelled by a physiological con 

 dition, and guided by a special sensibility towards a 

 single line of action, she ascertains what is unattainable 

 by man. In the economy of Nature, the life of a 

 succeeding generation is secured in ample food supplies, 



i Weismann s Essays on Heredity, p. 93 ; 2d ed. vol. i. p. 94. For 

 additional examples, see Mivart s Essays, ii. p. 405 ; and Romanes s 

 Darwin and after Darwin, p. 293 . 



