INSTINCT AND SENSE-EXPERIENCE. 63 



chimneys and, having studied and understood at least 

 some advantages afforded by either, freely decides to 

 depart from the traditions of its race and select chimneys 

 for its future nest. We need not repeat that such an 

 assumption is unwarranted. The ' ' choice ' ' of the wasp 

 is no real "choice." In fact, it implies no more 

 "choice" than many an action preceeding from in- 

 herited dispositions, such as distinguishing true food 

 from poison and all indifferent material. The wasp 

 "selects" a chimney, simply because it has the in- 

 herited faculty at a suitable time to react appropriately 

 upon a concrete sensitive impression made upon it by 

 a concrete suitable object without becoming conscious 

 of the appropriateness of the action. It is anything 

 but sensitive cognition and appetency, and there is no 

 reason for attributing it to a higher faculty of abstrac- 

 tion and logical thought. 



We agree, therefore, with Prof. Wheeler when 

 he calls choice a characteristic mark of intelligence, but 

 we differ from him when he asserts that modification 

 by sense-experience necessarily implies choice. Be- 

 sides we believe Prof. Wheeler does not lay sufficient 

 stress on the fact above demonstrated that instinctive 

 activities even in as far as they proceed from an inherit- 

 ed mechanism are directed by sensuous cognition and 

 appetency and hence that they differ from merely re- 

 flex actions which include no sensuous consciousness 

 whatever. For Wheeler simply speaks of "actions 

 compelled by inherited mechanism, ' ' a definition which 

 is certainly incomplete and characteristic of reflex 

 actions. 



We conclude, therefore, that Prof. Wheeler, 



