PDF - Wallace Online

IVON INSTINCT INMAN AND ANIMALSTHE most perfect and most striking examples of what istermed instinct those in which reason or observation appearto have the least influence, and which seem to imply thepossession of faculties farthest removed from our own are tobe found among insects. The marvellous constructive powersof bees and wasps, the social economy of ants, the carefulprovision for the safety of a progeny they are never to seemanifested by many beetles and flies, and the curious preparationsfor the pupa state by the larvae of butterflies andmoths, are typical examples of this faculty, and are supposedto be conclusive as to the existence of some power or intelligencevery different from that which we derive from oursenses or from our reason.How Instinct may be best StudiedWhatever we may define instinct to be, it is evidently someform of mental manifestation, and as we can only judge of mindby the analogy of our own mental functions and by observationof the results of mental action in other men and inanimals, it is incumbent on us, first, to study and endeavourto comprehend the minds of infants, of savage men, and ofanimals not very far removed from ourselves, before wepronounce positively as to the nature of the mental operationsin creatures so radically different from us as insects. We havenot yet even been able to ascertain what are the senses theypossess, or what relation their powers of seeing, hearing, andfeeling have to ours. Their sight may far exceed ours bothin delicacy and in range, and may possibly give them know