OCTOBEK 239 



wards, stepping from stay to stay, and laying down a 

 thread in a wide spiral to act as a scaffolding for the 

 finished structure. Finally, having arrived at the limits 

 of the operative net, she retraces her steps, working in- 

 wards in a much closer spiral, laying the transverse threads 

 at the proper distance, and devouring, as she goes, the 

 original scaffolding threads which enabled her to perform 

 the work. 



If it is difficult to dissociate such a consummate piece 

 of engineering from the operation of a keen intellect, still 

 more so is it to regard the far greater complexity of snares 

 produced by certain other spiders as the mere outcome 

 of functional automatism. Nevertheless, that seems to 

 be the true explanation. If the spider's web were the 

 outcome of the creature's individual ingenuity and intel- 

 ligence, there certainly would be manifest some variation 

 in design among millions of webs by different individuals 

 of the same species — some shortcomings in first attempts. 

 No such variation — no such shortcoming — can be de- 

 tected. There is no ''prentice hand' among spiders. 

 The first web of each spider is of normal design and 

 perfect construction. Destroy it, and the creature will 

 execute another exactly the same, no whit better adapted 

 for the capture of passing flies. 



But to recognise this performance as the effect of 

 unconscious automatism is by no means to deny the 

 probability of an external directing power. On the con- 

 trary, it would be easier for most of us to homologate the 

 most exacting dogma of scholiasts and theologians than 

 to conform to the demands of ultra-materialists and 

 refuse to admit the necessity of recognising some agency 

 beyond, above, and more powerful than matter. 



