THE MIND OF APES AND OF MAN 263 



of life, and even behaving more or less as man does in 

 similar circumstances, yet without being " conscious." 

 It is, no doubt, true that many of the complicated actions 

 of insects are carried on without consciousness of the 

 purpose or significance of what they are doing. Such is 

 the storing by certain wasps of smaller insects in care- 

 fully-cut chambers, to serve as food for the wasp's young, 

 to be hatched from an egg to be laid in the "cold^ 

 storage chamber." The mother wasp will go on doing 

 this when she has had the hind part of her body removed 

 and has no eggs to lay. This mechanical unreasoning 

 behaviour in insects is without exception, so that we 

 must accept M. Fabre's conclusion that they are, in fact, 

 unconscious " automata." 1 have already referred to this 

 subject in an earlier chapter, p. 197. 



We at once place ourselves in difficulty in discussing 

 this subject by the use of the words "conscious" and 

 " consciousness," for, as so often happens, they are custom- 

 arily applied in a vague and uncertain way to the mental 

 activities of man — without any precise agreement as. to 

 what is meant by either of them. We are all agreed 

 that a rational human being may go through a series of 

 elaborate actions apparently directed by purpose and 

 yet not be what we call " conscious," that is to say, 

 " aware " of what he is doing. This occurs in " sleep- 

 walking " and in " day-dreaming." And again, we know 

 that a man may be evidently conscious during a certain 

 period, and yet forget directly afterwards that he has 

 been conscious and said and done certain things during 

 that period. This often happens after "concussion of 

 the brain." It is, as a matter of fact, uncertain whether 

 one ought to regard the condition of a man during that 

 obliterated or forgotten period of seeming consciousness 

 as rightly to be described by the term " conscious." And 



