INTRODUCTION. 



EVEN in ancient times, observers of animal life 

 noticed that bodily size and psychic perfection 

 are not always in direct proportion, but that the 

 reverse is not unfrequently the case. Thus Aristotle 1 

 declared that keenness of perception (ryv ri/s Swvotas 

 aKptpeiav) was often more manifest in smaller 

 than in larger animals. Nor did it escape the great 

 Stagirite, who was not only a logical thinker, but also 

 a skilful observer, that many animals of low rank 

 in the zoological scale were endowed, in some way, 

 with a higher psychic life than the highest mammals, 

 so much so, that its manifestations could be com- 

 pared with human institutions only. He mentions, 

 especially, ants and bees among those "bloodless" 

 animals which possess a more intellectual soul than 

 many animals of the other kind. 2 The same thought 

 was expressed by St. Augustine, one of the loftiest 

 Christian minds, in the following terms : "We admire 

 the works of the tiny ants and bees more than the 

 bulky forms of whales." 3 And a distinguished modern 

 naturalist, Emil Dubois-Reymond, has acknowledged 



*) "Hist, animal./' 1. 9, c. 7 (Becker I, 612). 



2 ) "><? partib. animal.," 1. 2, c. 4 (Becker I, 650). Aristotle's 

 division of animals into those with red blood and those with colorless 

 blood in reality coincides with that of Vertebrates and Non- Vertebrates. 

 He uses the term "Bloodless Animals" for those which have no red 

 blood. 



") "De civ. Dei," 1. 22, c. 24, n. 5 (Migne XLI, 792). 

 1 



