THE INSTINCT OF ANIMALS 169 



Ve(lex which compels us to act thus in response to 

 the necessary stimuli. 



It is often asked, If the action of instinct is thus 

 so automatic and often so perfect in nature, where 

 does' the higher function of mind come in ? Let 

 me give an example in reply. I had in my house a 

 wasps' nest in being. Three-fourths of the work of 

 the ii\sects during the season has been directed 

 toward raising the large crop of queens and males 

 which inarks the end of the year. Every instinct 

 of the nest has been for months adjusted to this 

 social need. Yet what is the final result ? The 

 number of young queens in my nest is about 3,000, 

 there being almost as many males. As the number 

 of wasps in the world does not presumably increase, 

 and as such a nest is always begun in the spring by 

 a single queen, it follows that for one male and fertile 

 female to attain their perfect end, some 5998 must on 

 the average perish and fail. Such is the stupendous 

 cost of life before the epoch of mind. 



It is for reasons like these that there is to be 

 observed everywhere throughout Hfe one definite 

 upward line of development, namely, the rising 

 curve which marks the ascent of mind. We marvel 

 at the complexity and history of the single cell in 

 which the individual life in the higher forms always 

 begins, a speck of matter capable of transmitting 

 all the features and potentialities of inheritance 

 which separate the various forms of life and dis- 

 tinguish one individual from another. But who 

 can estimate the almost inconceivable complexity 

 of the inherited forces which organize, in a single 

 lifetime, the few ounces of grey matter of the human 

 brain ? But yesterday the components were a 



