Architecture in the Animal Kingdom. 133 



One thing, however, is made evident by these 

 and similar observations, viz. : that ants are not mere 

 reflex machines, but beings endowed with sensitive 

 cognition and appetite, and with the power of employ- 

 ing in the most various manner their innate, instinc- 

 tive faculties and abilities under the influence of 

 different sense-perceptions. And just on this account 

 it is altogether superfluous to admit "animal intelli- 

 gence"; for, the complex representations of sensitive 

 cognition, as we have shown in the above example, 

 afford a simpler and better explanation of whatever 

 is not mere fiction in those supposedly intelligent 

 actions of animals.^ 



Another example of bridge-building, which, by the 

 way, is merely vouched for by a Mr. Theuerkauf in 

 Buechner's "Geistesleben der Thiere" (p. 117), is 

 still less corroborative of ant intelligence than the 

 former. In this case the ants used a different means 

 for bridging over a circle of tar smeared around a 

 tree. The ants were descending from the top; on 

 arriving at the obstacle some stuck fast, others 

 returned to fetch plantlice from the twigs; they put 

 them on the tar and thus constructed a bridge. Sir 

 John Lubbock^ remarks in explanation of this story, 

 that he had his doubts as to the interpretation of the 

 fact. "Is it not possible that, as the ants descended 

 the tree, carrying the aphides, the latter naturally 

 stuck to the tar, and were therefore left there? In 

 the same way I have seen hundreds of bits of earth 



1) Cf. on this point, "Instinct and Intelligence in the Animal King- 

 dom" (1903), p. 109 and 137 ff., where we have shown, that not even 

 higher animals may be credited with formal consciousness of purpose. 



2) "Ants, bees and wasps" (London). 



