INTELLIGENCE. 237 



the most varied human feelings. On the basis of my observations I am of the opinion 

 that bees possess either no consciousness at all, or one of only the lowest degree of 

 development. The question of consciousness is left to subjective estimates, but the 

 question whether an animal learns and can acquire experience or not may be deter- 

 mined objectively. We see that bees show signs of an admirable memory in their 

 orientation and also in other activities; further I believe I have shown that the 

 bee possesses a perception for color and form, and develops a rich capacity for com- 

 munication by means of its well-developed 'language'; that, further, it is able to 

 gather experiences, to learn and to form associations of impressions, etc. I can not 

 agree with Bethe, therefore, in his denial that the bee has capacity to gather expe- 

 rience and thereby to modify its action. The bee is evidently much more than a reflex 

 machine." 



The psychic powers of insects. — Forel summed up his conclusions as 

 to the intelligence of insects as follows (1901:25; 1904:20; 1908): 



"It ensues from the concordant observations of all the experts that sensation, 

 perception, association, inference, memory, and habit in the social insects follow the 

 same fundamental laws as in the vertebrates and ourselves. Moreover, attention 

 is strikingly developed in insects, often assuming the nature of an obsession that is 

 hard to divert. On the other hand, inherited automatism manifests an immense 

 preponderance, and the faculties mentioned are exhibited in but exceedingly feeble 

 form beyond the limits of the instinct-automatism fixed in the species. 



"The senses of insects are our own. Only the sense of hearing remains doubtful 

 in so far as its location and interpretation are concerned. A sixth sense has not yet 

 been shown to exist, and a special sense of direction and orientation is certainly 

 lacking. Reflexes, instincts, and plastic individually adaptive central nervous activ- 

 ities pass over into one another by gradations. Without becoming antagonistic, 

 the central nervous activity in the different groups and species of animals becomes 

 complicated in two fashions: (1) through inheritance by natural selection, etc., 

 of complex purposeful automatic responses, or instincts; (2) through the manifold 

 possibilities of plastic, individually adaptive activities, in combination with the faculty 

 of gradually developing secondary individual automatic responses, or habits. In social 

 insects the correlation of more developed psychic powers with the volume of the brain 

 may be directly observed. In these animals it is possible to demonstrate the existence 

 of memory, associations of sensory images, perception, attention, habits, simple 

 powers of inference from analogy, the utilization of individual experiences and hence 

 distinct, though feeble, plastic individual deliberations or adaptations. 



"It is also possible to detect a corresponding, simpler form of volition, i. e., the 

 carrying out of individual decisions in a more or less protracted time sequence, through 

 different concatenations of instincts; furthermore different kinds of discomfort and 

 pleasure emotions, as well as interaction and antagonisms between these diverse 

 psychic powers. In insect behavior the activity of the attention is one-sided and 

 occupies a prominent place. It narrows the scope of behavior and renders the animal 

 temporarily unresponsive to other sense-impressions. 



"Even to-day I am compelled to uphold the seventh thesis which I established in 

 1877 in my habilitation as privat-docent in the University of Munich: 'All the prop- 

 erties of the human mind may be derived from the properties of the animal mind.' 

 I would merely add to this: 'And all the mental attributes of higher animals may be 

 derived from those of lower animals.' In other words: The doctrine of evolution is 

 quite as valid in the province of psychology as it is in all the other provinces of organic 

 life. Notwithstanding all the differences presented by animal organisms and the 

 conditions of their existence, the psychic functions of the nerve-elements seem never- 

 theless to be everywhere in accord with certain fundamental laws, even where this 

 would be least expected on account of the magnitude of the differences." 



