Biology / by Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson.

  • Patrick Geddes
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biology / by Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lid it has cut through, and the extra obstacle it could easily cut through, can do no more, and dies. As far as its bodily powers are concerned, it is free to act as it formerly did, so it should easily gnaw its way out; but this is inhibited by the stereotyped character and build of its psycho-physical organisation, which we call instinct, and that works so well as long as routine is not disturbed. When the wasp-grub emerges from its cradle, it has done all its cutting; it cannot begin again. So it dies in its paper prison, for lack of the least glimmer of intelligence. Thus we see a forking of the ways of life; between instinctive behaviour—with its ready-made capacity for doing apparently clever things— and intelligent behaviour—always with some appreciation of the relations of things, and the significance of the situation. If a bell-jar be placed over the nest that some species of wasp make underground among the moss and grass, the incoming wasps soon manage to effect their entrance under the edge of the glass. Yet neither they, nor others of their kin, can come out again. How so ? Because while they must alight to enter, and then creep, they are instinctively accustomed to fly out ! Similarly, when Fabre captured a long Indian file of Procession Caterpillars, adjusted its length to the circumference of the stone curb of a fountain in his garden, and then brought the head of the first into contact with the tail of the last, they continued for a week
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