382 REFLEX ACTION, INSTINCT, AND REASON 



none of that fear of him which in our country they learn from dire 

 experience. We have a saying, " as wild as a hawk " ; but Darwin 

 relates how he almost pushed a hawk from its perch with the 

 muzzle of his gun in the Galapagos islands. Sea-birds round our 

 coasts, where they are molested, are exceedingly shy ; at London 

 Bridge they feed from the hand. Formerly Arctic seals, impelled 

 by fear of polar bears, inhabited the outer margin of the ice floes ; 

 now they have retreated from the more dangerous neighbourhood 

 of man to the landward edge. Antarctic seals, harried by the 

 great carnivora of the ocean, are watchful in the water ; on land 

 or the surface of the ice, where, till lately, they met no danger, they 

 may be slaughtered like sheep in the shambles. They are capable 

 of profiting by experience, but they are slow to learn, and can 

 acquire but little. Judged by our human standard they are very 

 stupid. The means of escape adopted by Arctic seals compared 

 with the means of capturing them, the ships, guns, and the rest, 

 afford a measure of the intellectual difference. 



634. When animals are social and so have the opportunity of 

 learning, not only from their parents but also from other members of 

 the species, the power of making mental acquirements and conse- 

 quently of handing on the traditions of the race is often correspond- 

 ingly great. It reaches a remarkable degree of development even 

 amongst insects, some species of which live in great communities. 

 Young ants are carefully tended and are said to receive instruction 

 from their elders. A capacity to profit by experience implies, of 

 course, memory. There is, however, more decisive evidence. 

 Some species of ants have the habit of capturing the pupae of other 

 species and of so training the young individuals that develop from 

 them that they peform duties which were quite unknown to their 

 ancestors. Therefore it is clear that the slaves profit by experience. 

 Consequently their actions are intelligent not instinctive. 



635. So important are the duties of the slaves, so much do they 

 learn, so long has the habit of slave-making been followed by their 

 masters, that in some species the latter have evolved into mere 

 fighting machines, incapable even of feeding themselves. Many 

 important physical and mental characters have undergone 

 retrogression in them not through lack of use, for doubtless the 

 animals used while they possessed them, nor even through 

 lack of utility, for powers of self-feeding must have always been 

 useful, but solely through lack of sufficient survival value. That is 

 to say, the parts, however much used and useful, underwent 

 retrogression because the acquirements of the slaves supplied a 



