PSYCHICAL FACULTIES OF ANTS AND OTHER INSECTS. 597 



the two animals will destroy each other's work. At last, however, 

 they notice this and one gives way and retires or helps the other. 



Nest and road making give the best opportunities to observe this — 

 for example, among the wood ants {Formica rufa) and, still better, 

 among Formica jyratensis. To full}^ elucidate this it is necessary to 

 follow them up for hours at a time. 



We may also recognize in the wars of ants very definite purposes 

 of action, especially in what I have called "combats a froid" (chronic 

 tights). After two opposing parties (two colonies that have been 

 brought together) have concluded a peace, single ants are often seen 

 to follow up and maltreat certain individuals of the opposite party. 

 They often carry them far away in order to separate them from the 

 nest. If these excluded ants return and are found by their pursuers, 

 they are again packed off and carried still farther. In one such case 

 it happened that the persecutor brought his victim to the edge of my 

 table. He then stretched out his head and let his enemy fall to the 

 ground. It was not accident, for he repeated the act twice afterwards 

 when I had brought his victim back upon the table. From the various 

 individuals of his former enemies but present allies he had concentrated 

 his antipath}" upon this one, and sought to make it impossible for him to 

 return. One must have strong prepossessions to say that in such and 

 man}^ similar cases ants do not form and execute resolves. It is true 

 that these acts are confined to the paths along which the instincts of 

 the species work and that the various steps in the execution of a 

 resolve are performed instinctively. Further, 1 especially protest 

 against ascribing to the will of the ant human considerations and 

 abstract conceptions. Nevertheless, we must candidly confess that, 

 reversing the positions, we men when executing our resolves con- 

 stantly allow the intervention of inherited as well as secondary 

 automatisms. While I am writing this my eyes are working with 

 automatisms that are partly inherited and my hand w^ith secondary 

 automatisms. It is of course understood that the complication of my 

 innervations and the accompan^nng abstract deliberations are such as 

 are peculiar to the human brain. 



It may be said in passing that we can explain in a similar manner 

 the relative independence of the spinal (;ord and the subordinate cere- 

 bral centers with reference to the cerebrum in the lower vertebrates 

 (also in lower mammals) as compared with the close interdependence 

 which those organs and their functions have in the mighty brain of 

 man and to some extent in that of apes. The latter separate and con- 

 trol their automatisms (divide et impera). 



While success visibly increases both the audacity of the ant and the 

 pertinacity of its will, continu(>d failure or sudden surprise by power- 

 ful enemies may occasion an inhibitive despondency leading to the 

 neglect of the most important instincts, to cowardly flight, the eating 



