NOVEMBER 289 



of the prey and skilfully paralyses it, so that the game may 

 keep fresh : that instigates, in fine, a host of actions wherein 

 shrewd reason and consummate science would have their 

 part, were the creature acting through discernment. This 

 faculty is perfect of its kind from the outset, otherwise the 

 insect would have no posterity. ... It is not free nor 

 conscious in its practice, any more than is the faculty 

 of the stomach for digestion or that of the heart for 

 pulsation. . . . 



'But pure instinct, if it stood alone, would leave the 

 insect unarmed in the perpetual conflict of circumstance. 

 Though the background remains, the same, the details 

 change : the unexpected rises on every side. In this 

 bewildering confusion, a guide is needed to seek, accept, 

 refuse, and choose. . . . This guide the insect undoubtedly 

 possesses, to a very manifest degree. It is the second pro- 

 vince of its mentality. Here it is conscious and capable 

 of improvement by experience. I dare not speak of this 

 rudimentary faculty as intelligence, which is too exalted a 

 title : I will call it discernment. . . . 



' So long as we confound acts of pure instinct and acts of 

 discernment under the same head, we shall fall back into 

 those endless discussions which embitter controversy without 

 bringing us one step nearer the solution of the problem. Is 

 the insect conscious of what it does 1 Yes and no. No, if 

 its action is in the province of instinct ; yes, if the action is 

 in that of discernment.' l 



1 Bramble Bees and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by A. 

 Texeira de Mattoa, 1915. 



