The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-07-29
THE INSECT MIND.
(From the London Spectator.

(F'rom the London SPECTATOR
The interesting question suggested by
the activities of the gardener ant is
whether it consciously uses its intelli-
gence, or, if not, how far instinct" and
reason are working side by side In en-
deavoring to solve it, we are confronted
at the outset with this difficulty, that
| the insect mind works on lines remote
from our own experience, and exhibits its
methods by Indications very hard for us
to interpret. The aloofness of the insect
mind from apprehension by vertebrates'
brains perplexes all inquirers. We can
range ourselves side by side with the con-
structive bird, or the engineering beaver.
There is sympathy between us and them
both in intelligence and feelings. But
the mute and expressionless being which
animates the metallic she'll Of some social
| insect lives out of relation to our lines OF
thought. Man and dog may take COM
mon action on the same grounds; but we
cannot see practical problems eye to eye
with an ant.
| Our sympathy and common share in
the EN- otious of birds and beasts has very
largely helped us to infer their intellectu-
al processes. The border line where love,
fear, wants and desires originate action
is common to US with them; and we
know that many animals also share with
us the esthetic sense. In underwriting to
understand the process of thought in in
/ hav IN ssIlh thnf xuhn Of
this common ground, and to approach
the subject almost-not quite-as If it
were working in different medium
What we do know of their senses seems
! in some instances to keep us at this i'm
possible distance Physical inquiry ac-
/ centuates these differences. We know,
for instance. that the compound eyes of
/ many insects must present objects to
| them in a different form from that in
which we see them. Some ants have no
eyes at all, yet 60 about their daily busi
ness quite a. we'll as If they saw. Sir
John Lubbook's experiments show that
they can smell but, on the other hand,
they canot hear-or rather, do not hear
the sounds which we hear. They are also
mute; but 1t is quite likely that they
utter sounds which we cannot hear. Thus
the human world of sounds is non-exist-
emit for the ant, and very probably the
/
non existent for us. At the same time
they have a different quality Of sight,
which, if transferred to us, would make
us unable to find the Nelson column in
Trafalgar square.
The RESULT of the gap between the mind
of the man who observes and the mind
of the insect whose activities he watches
has always tended to produce one of two
I contradictory forms of Interpretation.
The first was to assume that, because So
cial bees or ants were engaged in exactly
the same activities as human communi-
ties, their minds were practically the
same as our own; that, In fact. there was
something equivalent to human intelli
gence OF very high order. with necessn-
rily corresponding moral qualities, in
the bee, and that for the purposes of
this life there was, in fact, a tiny ''souP'
in each working member OF the hive.
This SOUL II the conclusions of the early
naturalists are examined, is clearly hui
man intelligence metamorphosed. This
assumption would explain quite logically
the astonishing and incredible perfection
of the material side of the life of social
| insects. 1t also accounted for the appar-
emily moral ideas of subordination, self
sacrifice and devotion to duty which their
| life exhibits. The difficulty in its accept
ance was the Limitation of this intelli-
gence to narrow class of actions, out
side which this astonishingly brilliant
intellect ceased to work at all, and the
absence of any evidence hey ond that set of
acts to show the processes of thought
This absence of evidence of any thought
originating and directing the work of
social insects led also to an exactly oppo-
site conclusion. The actions performed
demanded so much mental power, and
the evidence of mental action was so
slight and our powers of apprehending
functions so aloof from our sensations SO
limited, that the whole of their compli-
Gated life and actions was set down as
purely automatic. Every action ascriba-
BILE to reason, from the making of the
hexagonal cell Of the honey bee, in which
| tho utmost carrying capacity is obtained
with the least expenditure of material,
to the making of mushroom beds" by
\ tho 'parasol ants, is thus ascribed to blind
obetiience to inherited instinct, or knowl-
edger':prior to experience. In the light
| of this conclusion the ants which make
| suoh admirable dwellings and storehousss
that tthey arrest the termination of seeds,
| or when needed, permit them to sprout
| and undergo the exact chemical change
needed to turn them into ants food, and
arrest.this again at the proper stage, and
whose cities are popped with dependents
living on the "crumbs which fall from
their table''-there are 300 species of such
ant parasites in Germany alone-are to-
day as brainless as the new y Matched
cuckoo which, when still blind and
naked, at once addresses itself to the task
of ejeoting its fellow-nestlings.
|