REALM OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS 



these wonders, and therefore they can have no 

 idea that the aphis eggs of autumn will produce 

 young aphides in spring. Therefore there can be 

 no intelligence in their care of the eggs. 



Nor can they have any knowledge that the 

 young aphides will require special food-plants. 

 We know it, because the books tell us all about 

 it; but the ants can have no knowledge that a 

 particular kind of aphis must suck the juices of 

 particular kinds of plants in order to produce 

 sugar. It is absurd, therefore, and very mislead- 

 ing, to talk of forethought and reasoning power 

 in the actions of the ants, since these are guided 

 by facts of which the ants can have no knowl- 

 edge whatever. 



It is possible perhaps it is probable that the 

 ants can recognize the eggs of the aphides by 

 scent, and that being accustomed to visit an aphis- 

 colony for sugar and finding, one autumn morn- 

 ing, that the aphides are producing eggs instead 

 of sugar, they may have acquired the habit of 

 carrying off the eggs. It is possible, too, that 

 some connection of ideas may have given them the 

 impulse to restore the young aphides to the plants 

 on which they were accustomed to find those in- 

 sects producing sugar. Granted the possibility of 

 these two suggestions, we may have a correct and 

 scientific explanation of the origin of the very re- 

 [45] 



