2,7 2 Animal Life and Intelligence. 



I do not propose to consider particular instances of 

 intelligent inferences as displayed by the invertebrates. 

 Bees in the manipulation of their comb, ants in the 

 economy of their nest, spiders in the construction of their 

 web and the use they make of their silken ropes, show 

 powers of intelligent adaptation which cannot fail to excite 

 our wonder and admiration. But apart from the fact that 

 insect psychology is more largely conjectural than that of 

 the more intelligent mammals, a consideration of these 

 actions would only lead me to reiterate the opinion above 

 frequently expressed. In a word, I regard the bees in their 

 cells, the ants in their nests, the spiders in their webs, as 

 workers of keen perceptions and a high order of practical 

 intelligence. But I do not, as at present advised, believe 

 that they reason upon the phenomena they deal with so 

 cleverly. Intelligent they are ; but not rational. 



Once more, let me repeat that the sense in which I use 

 the words "rational" and "reason" must be clearly 

 understood and steadily borne in mind. Mr. Bomanes 

 uses them in a different sense. "Beason," he says,* " is 

 the faculty which is concerned in the intentional adapta- 

 tion of means to ends. It therefore implies the conscious 

 knowledge of the relation between means employed and 

 ends attained, and may be exercised in adaptation to cir- 

 cumstances novel alike to the experience of the individual 

 and to that of the species. In other words, it implies the 

 power of perceiving analogies or ratios, and is in this sense 

 equivalent to the term 'ratiocination,' or the faculty of 

 deducing inferences from a perceived equivalency of rela- 

 tions. This latter is the only sense of the word that is 

 strictly legitimate." 



It is not my intention to criticize this use of the term 

 "reason." Whether animals are capable of a conscious 

 knowledge of the relation between means employed and 

 ends attained, depends, as we have already seen, upon how 

 much is implied by the word " knowledge " — whether the 

 knowledge is perceptual or conceptual. My only care is 



* "Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 318. 



