The hen which sits three weeks on a china egg is influenced by blind impulse—instinct; while the turkey which discovers the eggs of her rival in her nest, and destroys them, is directed by something infinitely higher—by reason. The using of a common nest never occurs among these birds in a wild state, neither is it of so frequent occurrence among domesticated turkeys as to have formed an instinctive habit.
Again, the honey-making ants which left their patrol line in order to slay the wounded centipede may have been, and probably were, influenced by instinct; another and wholly different psychical trait, however, impelled them to fill up the trench dug with my hunting knife. This accident could not have occurred, perhaps, to them in a state of nature, or if by any possibility it had ever occurred before, the chances are that such occurrences were few in number, and that they happened at long intervals of time, thus precluding the establishment of an instinctive habit. Nor do I think it possible for this action to come under the head of "specialized instinct," for the same reason. By the very nature of things there can be no such thing as an "intelligent accident"; the term is itself a contradiction, therefore the performance of these ants must be considered an act of intelligent ratiocination.
In this discussion of mind in the lower animals I have endeavored to show that the psychical traits evinced by them indicate that their mental organisms, taken as a whole, are the same in kind as that of man.
FOOTNOTES:
[115] Kirby and Spence, Entomology, p. 591.
[116] Romanes, Animal Intelligence, pp. 101, 102; see also Kemp, Indications of Instinct, pp. 120, 130.
[117] Compare Romanes, Jelly-Fish, Star-Fish, and Sea-Urchins, p. 227.
[118] Lindsay, Mind in the Lower Animals, pp. 81-93.
[119] Romanes, Skinner, Sir R. Tennent, Bingley, Forbes, et al.
[120] Peal, Nature, Vol. XXI. p. 34; quoted also by Romanes.