BIOPSYCHOLOGICAL 641 



that the piece of behaviour in question has been relegated, so to 

 speak, into the field of the instinctive, and cannot suddenly be 

 brought into the focus of intelligence. 



8. Instinctive behaviour, as in ants and bees, goes like clockwork, 

 and in many cases it is only occasionally that it becomes, say in a 

 crisis, original and intelligent. But we are not bound to suppose 

 that the racial estabhshment of this instinct was effected entirely 

 without intelligence. Let us suppose that an animal finds itself 

 endowed with a new impulse, perhaps the outcome of a germinal 

 variation in that part of the inheritance which concerns the nervous 

 system; it may proceed to test this novelty in an intelhgent way. 

 If it is a fatal new departure, that will be the end of it; if it is a 

 very advantageous new departure, it may have come to stay. It 

 will be added to the racial treasure-house. Even if the novelty is 

 not in itself big enough to be of "survival value" in the struggle for 

 existence, it may be linked to some other character that is of vital 

 importance, and may be carried in the wake of the well-established 

 character until it is strong enough to be itself sifted by Natural 

 Selection. 



There is no possibility, so far as we can see, of going back to the 

 old theory that instincts result from "lapsed intelligence", or, to 

 put it in another way, that instinctive behaviour was in previous 

 generations intelligently controlled behaviour. The facts do not 

 point in that direction. One must remember, for instance, that some 

 pieces of instinctive behaviour are manifested only once in a life- 

 time, and no one can make even an individual habit of what is 

 done only once. Moreover, there is great difficulty in substantiating, 

 even in a single instance, the theory that an individual habituation 

 can be entailed on subsequent generations. But it is quite legitimate 

 to emphasise the importance of the individual organism's intelligent 

 testing of variations in its inheritance. It may play the new cards 

 in its hereditary hand, and it may play them well or ill ! 



9. If Reason be taken to mean, as is generally allowed, working 

 or experimenting with general ideas or concepts, and if rational 

 behaviour means behaviour which has conceptual inference as its 

 mental correlate, then, so far as we know, animals have not Reason. 

 This is Man's prerogative, occasionally used. The behaviour of 

 animals sometimes gives evidence of reasoning, but at an intelligent, 

 not at a rational, level. That is to say, the mental correlate is per- 

 ceptual inference, putting two and two together, making a judg- 

 ment, to some extent understanding the situation. If some critic 

 says, "/ call this reason", all that can be replied is that the scientific 

 usage of these terms should be observed. It is not for easygoing 

 amateurs to re-edit the scientific dictionary. 



10. Evidence of intelligence is clear in the behaviour of apes and 

 monkeys, cats and dogs, horses and elephants, rooks and parrots, 



VOL. I TT 



