PLAY AND INSTINCT. 41 



that this opening may not be used by my enemies, I must 

 use such an arrangement of the fibrous web as will 

 allow me to push out but will yet offer resistance to out- 

 side pressure, according to the principle of the arch/ 

 This does seem too much to expect from the poor little 

 caterpillar." * 



Wundt cites the same example, originally suggested 

 by Autenrieth,f as especially significant, and says, more- 

 over: " If it were actually through a capacity for adapt- 

 ing means to an end that the bird produces its nest, 

 the spider its web, and the bee its cell structure, a degree 

 of intelligence would be required that man himself, in 

 the course of a mere individual life, would hardly be 

 capable of. A further proof of the fallacy of such an 

 explanation is the regularity with which certain actions 

 are performed by individuals of the same species where 

 there is not always any association between them. Such 

 association, of course, exists among the bee and ant 

 tribes and among those animals whose young remain 

 for some time after birth with their parents, but in 

 numerous other cases the little creature begins its life 

 independently. When the caterpillar creeps out of the 

 egg its parents are long since dead, yet it prepares a 

 cocoon like theirs. And, finally, there are many cases 

 where the instinct-acts that seem to be intelligent appear 

 to include a direct foresight of the future. How can this 

 foresight possibly be intelligent when there has never 

 been analogous experience in the individual's life? Nor 

 has it received information in any way. When the moth 

 incloses its eggs in a furry covering made of its own hair, 

 the winter, which makes this warm wrapping necessary 



* E. von Hartmann, Philosophie des Unbewussten, i, p. 79. 

 f J. H. F. Autcnrieth, Ansichten uber Natur- und Seelenleben, 

 1836, p. 171. 



