THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



by Weismann, which protects itself from its great 

 enemy, the leaf-cutting ant, by harboring inside its 

 hollow branches another species of ant, which makes 

 war upon the leaf -cutters. To requite these ants for 

 the protection they afford the tree, and to attract 

 them to it, the tree has developed a special kind 

 of food for the ants at the base of the leaf petioles, 

 just where the danger is greatest. There are said to 

 be other species of this tree that do not develop this 

 food, and they do not have the ants to protect them. 

 The story is almost incredible, because it seems to 

 make a thinking, planning, reasoning being of a tree, 

 but the fact I have stated seems well established. 

 What shall we say, then? Do these low forms of life 

 possess man's faculty of reason, even if they behave 

 in this very reasonable way? I do not believe it, any 

 more than I believe the ingenious mechanical device 

 of the orchid to secure cross-fertilization is the result 

 of reason in the orchid. We must call it by some other 

 name. Its genesis is different. Human reason pro- 

 gresses, invents, finds new ways. It is like man's 

 two hands, which can be turned to many uses. Man's 

 organization and physical powers are not specialized 

 as the lower animals' are; he is free, and master of 

 many fields; his superiority is mental, not structural 

 like that of the bird. The specialization is in his 

 mental powers, the power of reason, which gives 

 him dominion as the wing gives dominion to the 

 bird. , 



204 



