596 PSYCHICAL FACULTIES OP ANTS AND OTHER INSECTS. 



they learned to H}' directly through the meshes. The sense of vision 

 in flight is peouliurly adapted to this kind of experiments, which, 

 however, can not be made with ants. Yet the latter doubtless arrive 

 at similar conclusions by means of the topochemical sense residing in 

 their antennte. The finding of booty or other nourishment upon a 

 plant or near any object leads them to search similar plants or 

 objects, etc. 



There are, on the other hand, very stupid insects, such as male ants, 

 diptera, and day flies, with scanty brains, who are unable to learn 

 anything, unable to combine sense perceptions so as to produce an}'- 

 thing higher than merely automatic acts, in whom a retention of mem- 

 ory impressions is hardly demonstrable. These respond hardly at all 

 to anything but sense stimuli, but their life is adapted to extremely 

 simple relations. It is here that the difference is best seen, and this 

 demonstrates in the clearest manner, by comparison and contrast, the 

 greater intelligence that the more gifted insects possess. 



Doinaln of the will. — The conception of the will as opposed to that 

 of the reflexes presupposes, between the sense impression and the 

 movement conditioned by it, a certain time as well as an intervening 

 and complicated cerebral process. During the performance of instinc- 

 tive, purposeful automatisms, which disengage themselves in a certain 

 succession, there is also, as in the will, an interval of time occupied 

 by the interior dynamic processes of the brain. There are, therefore, 

 no pure reflexes. They may be for some time broken off and then 

 again resumed. Yet their execution involves for the most part a 

 linking together of complicated reflexes, which are obliged to follow 

 each other in a definite order and not otherwise. Therefore the 

 expression automatism or instinct is justified. 



In order to be able to predicate will in the narrow sense we must 

 establish individual resolves which can be directed according to circum- 

 stances — i. e., can be modified — which have the faculty of lying for a 

 certain time in the brain, then to be again brought forward. This 

 will is usually far below the complex human will, which consists of 

 enormously complicated components long prepared and combined. 

 Ants show both positive and negative will phenomena, which should 

 not be confounded. In this the species of Formica L. excels, as it 

 especially illustrates in the clearest manner individual psychical activi- 

 ties. In the changes of nest mentioned above we may very well recog- 

 nize the individual plans of a worker adhered to with the greatest 

 tenacity. An ant will work for hours at some difticult matter in order 

 to attain an end it has proposed for itself. This end is not exactly 

 prescribed instinctiveh', as man}' possibilities may be involved, and 

 therefore it often occurs that two ants work against each other. To 

 the superficial observer this may appear stupid. Yet it is provided 

 for in the plastic quality of the intelligence of ants. For some time 



