72 PERIOD III. 



their comb towards the nearest uncovered surface, 

 though this obliged them to distort their cells. He was 

 driven to the conclusion that bees possess " a little dose 

 of judgment or reason." In our own time, when all 

 conscious adaptation of means to ends is believed to 

 be worthy of the name of reason^ it requires no great 

 courage to ask why we deny such an attribute to all the 

 lower animals. 



In spite of examples like this, the favourite expression 

 " blind instinct " helped to strengthen the conviction 

 that the mental processes of animals are unsearchable. 

 It is impossible to deny that the epithet blind is appro- 

 priate in many cases. A bird will sit an addled o.^^ all 

 summer, or vainly but repeatedly attempt to make its 

 tunnel in the insufficient breadth of a mud wall (Geo- 

 sitta). Of course such instances do not show that all 

 the acts of the lower animals are devoid of intelligence. 



Hume in 1739 and again in 1748 appealed to every- 

 day observation of dogs, birds, and other animals of 

 high grade. The facts seemed to him to show that 

 animals as well as men are endowed with reason and 

 able to draw inferences ; he did not, however, credit 

 them with the power of framing general statements, 

 holding that experience operates on them, as on children 

 and the generality of mankind, by " custom " alone. It 

 is notorious that the dog and other higher animals learn 

 by experience ; Hume tells, for instance, how an old 

 greyhound will leave the more fatiguing part of the 

 chase to younger dogs, and place himself so as to meet 

 the hare in her doubles. On the other hand (though 

 Hume does not say so) man himself possesses non- 

 educable instincts. In short, Hume sees no ground for 

 drawing a line between the mental powers of man and 

 those of the higher animals, though he attributes to 



