196 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



the thwarting of the mating instinct which produces 

 the results may readily be proved by experiment. 

 The sense of the future which lies enfolded within 

 her, and of the fact that her whole object in life is 

 being defeated, is almost human to witness. When 

 the same young queen wasp hibernates and survives 

 the winter she does so undoubtedly through some 

 unexplained effect on her nervous system of the 

 knowledge of the fact that her part in the future is 

 still to be played. For if she feels that she is being 

 prevented from fulfilling it, she will die. When in 

 the spring she seeks out the site for her underground 

 nest, and proceeds single-handed to rear the first 

 members of the future wasp-colony, every one of a 

 long series of acts appears to the observer to be 

 almost uncanny in their sequence, so clearly do they 

 appear to be directed by an insight into needs in 

 the future of which she can have no possible experi- 

 ence. It is this kind of knowledge in young animals 

 which often conforms to Kant's definition of " pure 

 reason " rather than intelligence of the ordinary 

 kind which is so remarkable. If in the midst of 

 all this preoccupied labour towards definite ends the 

 same wasp be removed with her nest a few yards 

 off, she will fly out and be quite unable to find it 

 again. She will stupidly return time after time to 

 the site where she first placed it. However impera- 

 tive may be the indication to refer all the explana- 

 tions of the working of the mind in young animals to 

 the explanation of natural selection, we are still 

 confronted with much that is inexplicable. 



Take the example of a habit which is possessed by 

 young wild ducks very soon after they are hatched 

 out, and as they greedily seek their food in shallow 



