INSTINCT AND SENSUOUS CONGITIOX. 53 



gence far superior to our own; we must bow down be- 

 fore the animal, which manifests from the very first 

 day of its existence a degree of wisdom that men 

 acquire only after years of experience and labor- 

 ious study. Let us not forget the example of the 

 Rhynchites betulae, but remember how this tinj^ 

 beetle "without any study solves mathematical 

 and technical problems, which the mind of man has 

 brooded over for centuries; how at the very first trial 

 it performs its work with the greatest perfection, 

 though no parents, no brothers or sisters were its 

 teachers, though no experience extending over years 

 developed the use of its faculties; how with mar- 

 vellous anticipation it provides for future circumstan- 

 ces, of which it could have no notion whatsoever 

 either by its own experience or by human ratioci- 

 nation; how in fine under ordinary circumstances it 

 communicates to its work such manifold perfection and 

 such appropriateness for the desired purpose that the 

 thousands of specimens of man's art and industry seem 

 to be the unfinished work of an apprentice." l ) 

 Undoubtedly an intelligence is manifest in the instinc- 

 tive actions of animals which evidently surpasses that 

 of man. And yet the elder Agassiz and his followers 

 err in attributing this intelligence to the animal itself 

 and in maintaining that in the question of spiritual 

 faculties man should not arrogate to himself a privi- 

 leged position in the animal creation. This sup- 

 position not only destroys the dignity of man and 

 elevates the animal to a sort of God-like being, but 

 brings us into collision with indisputable facts. In- 

 ') E. Wasmann, S. J., Der Trichterwickler, 1884, p. 56. 



