136 Chapter VII. 



for doing so, the normal vital activities of the ant ought 

 to be just as "brainless," as altogether awkward, as 

 the actions of a higher vertebrate would be, that had 

 been deprived of its cerebral cortex by artificial am- 

 putation. But this conclusion is an apparent contra- 

 diction to biological facts. Therefore the argumenta- 

 tion on which it rests is likewise untenable. 



Perhaps science will some day succeed in investi- 

 gating the anatomy and physiology of the insect-brain 

 as accurately as it has investigated the brain of ver- 

 tebrates. The difficulty is of course immense on 

 account of the minute proportions of the object under 

 examination. In the mean time the following consid- 

 erations must serve as a sufficient safeguide in com- 

 paring vertebrate with articulate animals. It is an in- 

 contestable fact, that many insects and especially ants 

 have a sensitive power of association which suitably 

 guides the exercise of their instincts, and which is 

 modified in many ways by individual experience. In 

 our different works 1 we have furnished much evidence 

 in proof of this fact. Moreover the anatomical dis- 

 covery of the far more perfect development of the so- 

 called by-brain, the peduncles of ants and of other 

 insects whose psychic capabilities surpass those of 

 insects of inferior psychic endowment, is in perfect 

 harmony with the above-mentioned psychological fact. 

 Hence we may conclude with much probability, that 

 there is a similar connection between the ''by-brain" 



T ) Especially in the "Vergleichende Studien ueber das Seelenleben 

 der Ameisen und hoeheren Thiere" (1. AufL, Freiburg, 1897), and in 

 our recent work, "Die psychischen Faehigkeiten der Ameisen" (Stutt- 

 gart, 1899). 



