INSTINCT AND SENSE-EXPERIENCE. 61 



merely analogous sense. For that word conveys the 

 idea that all actions modified by sense-experience nec- 

 essarily imply consciousness of finality, which is posi- 

 tively false. Prof. Wheeler says against Wasmann 

 "that he has overshot the mark and attempted to in- 

 clude too much in his conception of instinct." "I 

 should continue, therefore," he adds, "to emphasize 

 the difference between activities which are compelled 

 by inherited mechanism and those which imply choice 

 on the part of the individual organism. For the latter 

 the term "intelligence" has been so very generally 

 used that it seems both hopeless and idle to restrict it, 

 as Wasmann so emphatically desires, to the ratiocina- 

 tive process in its clearest manifestations. " x ) We do 

 not deny that true choice supposes intelligence. But 

 we do deny that instinctive actions modified by sense- 

 experience necessarily imply choice. What is 

 "choice?" The Standard dictionary answers "that 

 power of the will by which one freely prefers and se- 

 lects as an end of action some one good out of those 

 presented to the mind. ' ' This definition is clear and 

 to the point. It evidently supposes that the one who 

 chooses compares two or more objects with each other 

 and having understood the relation of them to himself 

 freely selects the one and rejects the rest. Here is an 

 illustration w 7 ell adapted for our purpose: On May 

 5th, 1905 we arranged an ant nest for I^asius interjectus 

 consisting of two compartments connected by a small 

 opening. Compartment No. 1 was dark, dry and with- 

 out earth ; compartment No. 2 was light and contained 

 earth. About 100 ants with some 40 young larvae 

 l ) 1. c., p. 809. 



