468 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE IN THE CENTURY. 



chical terms, such as intelligence and conscious con- 

 trol. And this position is strengthened by the fact 

 that we find structural nervous complications, in a 

 gradually ascending series, comparable to those which 

 we know to be the physical basis of mentality in 

 ourselves. We need not be so generous as the 

 earlier observers who made each animal a homun- 

 culus; but we cannot pretend to be convinced that 

 the progress of physiology has yet justified us in ac- 

 cepting the phrase " reflex-machine '' as an adequate 

 description of even a pismire. 



Father Wasmann,* who has done splendid work 

 as an entomologist, especially in connection with the 

 partners and guests of ants, has recently sought to 

 uphold the view that many animals must be regarded 

 as actively intelligent, or with psychical life which, 

 within its acknowledged limits, is as essential to 

 their behaviour as ours is to our daily conduct. In 

 other words, he has argued against the purely objec- 

 tive interpretation of animals as " reflex-machines." 

 In referring to this Professor Loeb notes that the 

 answer to the question whether or not animals possess 

 intelligence varies with the definition of the word, 

 and that the discussion is purely scholastic. " The 

 aim of modern biology is no longer word-discussion, 

 but the control of life-phenomena. Accordingly we 

 do not raise and discuss the question as to whether 

 animals possess intelligence, but we consider it our 

 aim to work out the dynamics of the processes of 

 association, and find out the physical and chemical 

 conditions which determine the variation in the ca- 

 pacity of memory in the various organisms." f And 



* Instinct und Intelligenz im Thierrich, 1897. 



t Comparative Physiology of the Brain and Comparative 

 Psychology, 1901, p. 287. 



