68 MIND IN THE INVEETEBEATA. 



Invertebrata, on the other, is of importance as bearing on the 

 question of difference in degree between the mental faculties 

 of man and of other animals. Thus Belt ranks the foraging 

 ant first in intelligence among the Annulosa, then wasps and 

 bees, and then other Hymenoptera ; and he points out that 

 'between ants and the lower forms of insects there is a 

 greater difference in reasoning powers than there is between 

 them and the lowest Mammalian.' Objection may, and 

 probably will, be taken to every one of these generalisations 

 of Belt's. Thus most students of comparative psychology 

 may prefer to bracket the Hymenoptera and Neuroptera the 

 true ants in the one, and the scarcely less interesting white 

 ants in the other, as very much on a psychical equality, and 

 occupying a higher platform than wasps or bees ; while the 

 difference in the psychical development of man and the 

 lowest Mammalian depends altogether on the types of man 

 and Mammalian selected for the comparison. If we com- 

 pare the lowest type of lowest man with one of the lowest 

 Mammalians that has been trained by man, or accustomed 

 to association with him, the difference will probably be 

 altogether in favour of the lower Mammal. 



But, in truth, we are not at present in a position to 

 compare, as to their psychical characters, the classes of any 

 one subkingdom of animals, the orders of any one class, the 

 genera of any one order, or the species of any one genus. We 

 cannot be said to possess a proper knowledge of the psychical 

 character of the individuals constituting the various races of 

 the single species man ; for, even in him, it has yet to be 

 determined in what proportions and modes instinct and 

 reason are correlated, how they overlap or pass into each 

 other, what are the distinctives of each, if there is any real 

 demonstrable distinction between them. 



