INTRODUCTION. 



TjWEN in ancient times, observers of animal life 

 1-V noticed that bodily size and psychic perfection 

 are not always in direct proportion, but that the 

 reverse is not unfrequently the case. Thus Aristotle 1 

 declared that keenness of perception (ryv T?}S Stavotas 

 d/cptjgaav) was often more manifest in smaller 

 than in larger animals. Nor did it escape the great 

 Stagirite, who was not only a logical thinker, but also 

 a skilful observer, that many animals of low rank 

 in the zoological scale were endowed, in some way, 

 with a higher psychic life than the highest mammals, 

 so much so, that its manifestations could be com- 

 pared with human institutions only. He mentions, 

 especially, ants and bees among those "bloodless" 

 animals which possess a more intellectual soul than 

 many animals of the other kind. 2 The same thought 

 was expressed by St. Augustine, one of the loftiest 

 Christian minds, in the following terms : "We admire 

 the works of the tiny ants and bees more than the 

 bulky forms of whales." 3 And a distinguished modern 

 naturalist, Emil Dubois-Reymond, has acknowledged 



!) "Hist, animal./' I. 9, c. 7 (Becker I, 612). 



2 ) "De partib. animal./' 1. 2, c. 4 (Becker I, 650). Aristotle's 

 division of animals into those with red blood and those with colorless 

 blood in reality coincides with that of Vertebrates and Non- Vertebrates. 

 He uses the term "Bloodless Animals" for those which have no red 

 blood. 



8 ) "De civ. Dei," 1. 22, c. 24, n. 5 (Migne XLI, 792). 

 1 



