176 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



Africa build plabforms on wliicli they sleep ; and, as both 

 species follow the same habit, it might be argued that 

 this was due to instinct, but we can not feel sure that it 

 is not the result of both animals having similar wants, 

 and possessing similar powers of reasoning. These apes, 

 as we may assume, avoid the many poisonous fruits of the 

 tropics, and man has no such knowledge : but, as our do- 

 mestic animals, when taken to foreign lands, and when 

 first turned out in the spring, often eat poisonous herbs, 

 which they afterward avoid, we can not feel sure that 

 the apes do not learn from their own experience or from 

 that of their parents what fruits to select. It is, how- 

 ever, certain, as we shall presently see, that apes have an 

 instinctive dread of serpents, and probably of other dan- 

 gerous animals. 



The fewness and the comparative simplicity of the 

 instincts in the higher animals are remarkable in contrast 

 with those of the lower animals. Cuvier maintained that 

 instinct and intelligence stand in an adverse ratio to each 

 other ; and some have thought that the intellectual facul- 

 ties of the higher animals have been gradually developed 

 from their instincts. But Pouehet, in an interesting 

 essay, has shown that no such inverse ratio really exists. 

 Those insects which pos^ss the most wonderful instincts 

 are certainly the most intelligent. In the vertebrate 

 series, the least intelligent members, namely, fishes and 

 amphibians, do not possess complex instincts ; and among 

 mammals the animal most remarkable for its instincts, 

 namely, the beaver, is highly intelligent, as will be ad- 

 mitted by every one who has read Mr. Morgan's excellent 

 work. 



