Habit and Instinct, 457 



the number of the ganglia. And yet this seems to be a 

 mrely instinctive action. So, too, to take but one more 

 ixample, there is surely no lack of precision in the cell- 

 laking instinct of bees. We may say, then, that, grant - 

 that an action is intelligent, the precision of the 

 ijustment is a criterion of the level of intelligence; but 

 that, since there may be instinctive actions of wonderful 

 precision, this criterion is not distinctive of intelligence. 

 Nay, more, there are many reflex actions of marvellous 

 precision and accuracy of adjustment ; and there can be 

 no question of intelligence, individual or ancestral, in 

 many of these. 



Nor can we regard prevision (which is sometimes 

 advanced as a criterion of intelligence) as specially dis- 

 tinctive of intelligent acts regarded objectively in the 

 study of the activities of animals. For, as we have 

 already seen, there are many instincts which display an 

 astonishing amount of what I ventured to term *' blind pre- 

 vision " — instance the instinctive regard for the welfare of 

 unborn offspring, and the instinctive preparation for an 

 unknown future state in the case of insect larvae. 



Nor, again, is the complexity of the adjustment distinc- 

 tive of intelligence as opposed to instinct. The case of the 

 sitaris, before given, the larva of which attaches itself to a 

 male bee, passes on to the female, springs upon the eggs 

 she lays, eats first the egg and then the store of honey, — 

 this case, I say, affords us a series of sufficiently marked 

 complexity. This instinct, the paralyzing, but not killing 

 outright, of prey by the sphex ; the marvellous economy of 

 wax in the cell-building of the honey-bee ; the affixing to 

 their body, by crabs, of seaweed {Stenorhynchus) , of ascidians 

 (an Australian Dromia), of sponge (Dromia vulgaris), of the 

 cloaklet anemone {Pagurus prideauxii) ; and other cases 

 too numerous for citation; — these show, too, that the 

 circumstances may be dealt with in such a way as to 

 extract from them the maximum of benefit, probably with- 

 out intelligence. It would be quite impossible intelli- 

 gently to improve upon the manner of dealing with the 



