91 t^ie moth and the candle 



Nevertheless, "much of the time" is not the same thing 

 as "always." As a matter of fact, one single incontrovcrti])le 

 instance of an insect which did not behave mechanically, 

 which exhibited desire, or will, or the power to choose a 

 preferable alternative, would be enough to make it not 

 only possible but probable that he had powers which 

 might intervene in the course of evolution even now. Those 

 powers would suggest that his primitive ancestors may 

 have been able to intervene more effectively before they 

 came — as they may have — to rely more and more on the 

 instincts into which acquired habits gradually hardened. 

 In man, "conditioned reflexes" are usually something which 

 do not precede but succeed acts directed by consciousness. 

 Why may not the conditioned reflexes of the insect have 

 arisen in the same way out of habits of behavior first ac- 

 quired with the help of his dim consciousness? 



But can an "incontrovertible instance" of purposeful be- 

 havior in insects be cited? That would seem to be the 

 crucial question and the answer to it is that quite a number 

 of instances can be cited which are at least not usually 

 controverted even though they are often brushed aside. 



Take for example a few recently cited by Evelyn Chees- 

 man, a recognized authority who was for many years 

 Curator of Insects for the Zoological Society of London. 

 Most of her most recent book, Insects: Their Secret World, 

 is concerned with describing what appear to be the fixed, 

 invariable, perhaps almost completely unconscious, be- 

 havior patterns of insects, including even the highest. But 

 there is a last chapter called "Individual Actions" in which 

 she cautiously describes observed cases where instinctive 

 behavior seems to have been momentarily superseded by 

 a purposeful action designed to meet an unusual situation. 



