INSTINCT AND REASON. 69 



capable of learning, and how learning can be achieved 

 without intelligence has never yet been explained, and 

 is never likely to be. But Mr. Wallace points out that 

 we have made a gratuitous assumption,, unsupported by 

 evidence, in supposing birds, for example, to build their 

 nests by instinct rather than by following the example 

 and instruction of their parents. Many things, he 

 remarks, which we ourselves are said to do instinctively, 

 such as putting out our hands to save ourselves from 

 falling, are acquired habits, not instinctive actions, and 

 in fact not possessed by infants. Mr. Darwin 1 tells us 

 of a species of ant which behaves differently towards its 

 slaves in England and in Switzerland respectively. In 

 his memorable account of the busy bee, he shows that 

 some species of bees are less clever at their work than 

 others, and that the accuracy even of the most advanced 

 cell-makers has been overrated. This is the more 

 worthy to be noted, because the same persons who are 

 extremely zealous to set forth reason as superior in kind 

 to what they call instinct, are yet often eager to extol 

 the effects of the lower faculty above those of the 

 higher. An interesting account has recently been given 

 of baboons in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good 

 Hope combining to pursue, and after a chase of two 

 days and a night, successfully destroying a leopard 

 which had invaded their haunts. Two tribes of baboons 

 in the same locality, the occupants of separate rocky 

 strongholds, are described as upon one occasion meeting 

 in battle, the result being, that nearly a hundred 



1 ' Origin of Species,' p. 268. 



