Instinct and Intelligence According to Modern Zoology. 15 



acknowledge either that the animal psychology of 

 modern zoologists arbitrarily substitutes "syllogisms 

 similar to those of man" for the simple sense functions 

 of the animal, or that it plays not less arbitrarily with 

 the term "intelligence." Both alternatives can only be 

 explained by the fact that, as Wundt correctly observes, 

 modern zoology is not free from the influence of the 

 pseudo-psychology. 



In this connection it may be to the purpose to quote 

 a passage from Charles Darwin's "Descent of Man," 

 which illustrates the methods of certain psychologists in 

 the Darwinian theory of evolution. "Of all the faculties 

 of the human mind it will, I presume, be admitted that 

 Reason stands at the summit. Few persons any longer 

 dispute that animals possess some power of reasoning. 

 Animals may constantly be seen (?) to pause, de- 

 liberate, and resolve. It is a significant fact that the 

 more the habits of any particular animal are studied by 

 a naturalist, the more he attributes to reason and the 

 less to unlearnt instincts. In future chapters we shall 

 see, that some animals extremely low in the scale 

 apparently display a certain amount of reason." 1 



Now, it is not our intention to comment on Darwin's 

 bold statement, that observers of animal life find more 

 intelligence and less instinct in animals the deeper they 

 search and penetrate. The highly praised intelligence 

 of ants has proved the very contrary according to the 

 observations of Sir John Lubbock, and during my 

 observations of ant life I have arrived more and more 

 at the conviction, that the very phenomena which appear 

 at first sight most similar to intellectual actions resolve 



*) "The Descent of Man," I (1871), p. 46. 



