n8 Instinct and its Lessons 



entirely different from that of the males and females, 

 and in some species the neuters destined for different 

 branches of work differ entirely from one another : 

 thus in one kind of ant there are working neuters 

 and soldier neuters, with jaws and instincts extraor- 

 dinarily different; and in another kind, the workers 

 of one caste, and one alone, have a wonderful sort of 

 shield on their heads, the use of which, it may be 

 observed, is quite unknown. Yet these neuters are 

 t'le offsprings of males and females, none of whom, 

 and none of whose ancestors, ever did a stroke of 

 work in their lives. How then can their instinct, 

 or its instruments, have possibly been developed by 

 Natural Selection only? Mr. Darwin is, of course, 

 too acute not to see the difficulty, and too honest 

 to dissimulate it. He calls it the most formidable he 

 has to meet, but proceeds to meet it by an elaborate 

 explanation. Selection, he says, may be applied 

 not to the individual only, but to the race, in 

 order to gain the required end. The good of the 

 race requiring the production of neuters, thus vari- 

 ously modified in form and instinct, those fertile 

 instincts may alone survive, which tend to produce 

 neuters so modified : and thus may Natural Selec- 

 tion suffice for the production. The realms of imagi- 

 nation are, no doubt, infinite, and within their sphere 

 such ramifications of fortuity are perhaps conceivable : 

 but have we not reached the bursting strain of im- 

 probability? That direct descent should develop 

 the geometrical instinct of the Working Bee is hard 

 enough to believe, but here the difficulty is raised 

 to the square. And even if the sum of impro- 

 babilities thus piled up be not overwhelming, still 

 the explanation so suggested does not avail so much 

 as to touch the case of slave ants. They exhibit an 

 instinct beneficial, not to their own race, but to 

 another: it can be of no advantage to the tribe from 

 which they are taken, that so many of its members 

 should be dragged away to bondage, or, at any rate, 



