Instinct and intelligence / by Charles S. Myers. Instinct and intelligence : a reply / by Charles S. Myers.
- Charles Samuel Myers
- Date:
- [1910?]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Instinct and intelligence / by Charles S. Myers. Instinct and intelligence : a reply / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.
7/20 page 213
![stuck in the ground and embarrassed her. Relinquishing this, she ran along a branch of the plant under which she was working, and, leaning over, picked up, from the ground below a good sized stone, but the effort was too much for her, and she turned a somersault on to the ground. She then started to bring a large lump of earth, but this evidently did not come up to her ideal, for she dropped it after a moment, and, seizing another dry leaf, carried it successfully to the spot and placed it directly over the seat.’ . . . “ ‘ Presently she [in this instance a specimen of another species, Pompilus scelestus] went to look at her nest and seemed to be struck with a thought that had already occurred to us—that it was decidedly too small to hold the spider. Back she went for another survey of her bulky victim, measured it with her eye, without touching it, drew her conclusions, and at once returned to the nest and began to make it larger. We have several times seen wasps enlarge their holes when a trial had demonstrated that the spider would not go in, but this seemed a remarkably intelligent use of the comparative faculty.’ “ Whatever the correct interpretation of this last observation, enough has been said to show that these wasps adapt means to ends in a way suited to the individual occasion. They are by no means confined to a series of reactions evoked with mechanical uni¬ formity by a uniform stimulus. On the contrary, they are able to deal within limits with each emergency presented by the individual differ¬ ences of the prey they have captured.” We have called attention (p. 211) to the fact that even ants are capable of learning from their elders. But this power of learning, or at all events of learning by experience, is by most psychologists considered a sign of intelligence1. If so, the very humblest forms of animal life appear to be intelligent. The protozoon Stentor, for example, first reacts to a fall of powder by turning aside. Should this action not bring it beyond reach of the powder, it reverses the direction of its ciliary movement. If it still fails to be successful, it withdraws into its tube. Finally, if the fall of powder continues, the organism detaches itself from its support, and swims away to another. When, after a short interval, the fall of powder is repeated, the organism starts at once with the fourth reaction, instead of proceeding through the three previous stages which have proved ineffective2. It may be urged, however, that the essential objective features of 1 Cf. M. F. Washburn, The Animal Mind, New York, 1908, p. 19. ~ II. Jennings, The Behaviour of Lower Organisms, New York, 1906.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30615446_0007.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
