The Mason-Wasps 



on the shifting sands of contradictory facts : 

 each step in our interpretation may find us 

 embogged. And yet these facts speak so 

 loudly that I do not hesitate to translate 

 their evidence as I understand it. In insect 

 mentality, we have to distinguish two very 

 different domains. One of these is instinct 

 properly so called, the unconscious impulse 

 that presides over the most wonderful part 

 of what the creature achieves with its in- 

 dustry. Where experience and imitation 

 are of absolutely no avail, instinct lays down 

 its inflexible law. It is instinct and instinct 

 alone that makes the mother build for a 

 family which she will never see; that coun- 

 sels the storing of provisions for the un- 

 known offspring; that directs the sting to- 

 wards the nerve-centres of the prey and 

 skilfully paralyses it, so that the game may 

 keep good; that instigates, in fine, a host of 

 actions wherein shrewd reason and consum- 

 mate science would have their part, were the 

 creature acting through discernment. 



This faculty is perfect of its kind from 

 the outset; otherwise the insect would have 

 no posterity. Time adds nothing to it and 

 takes nothing from it. Such as it was for 

 a definite species, such it is to-day and such 

 it will remain, perhaps the most settled zoo- 

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