Jr. James Weir

“ For it very frequently happens that the mother, both brute and human (and I use the word brute as the antithesis of the word human, and mean it to embrace all creatures other than man) , will lay down her life in defence of her young, seemingly, utterly forgetting this "first law" in her aim to save her offspring from destruction. Thus the spider whose egg-bag I had taken away ran here and there and everywhere in search of it, seemingly totally oblivious of my presence. ”

“ On the 27th of September last, the males and females of a colony of Lasius flavus emerged from their nest; I saw these young kings and queens congregate about the entrance of the nest and engage in playful antics until driven away by the workers. The workers would nip their legs with their mandibles until the royal offspring were forced to fly in order to escape being bitten. ”

“ I think that I have demonstrated that man is not the only tool-user.
Even such dyed-in-the-wool creationists as Kirby and Spence are forced to admit the presence of reason in insects.
"Such, then, are the exquisiteness, the number, and the extraordinary development of the instincts of insects. But is instinct the sole guide of their actions? Are they in every case the blind agent of irresistible impulse? ”

“ Instinct is the bugbear of psychology and does more to retard investigation than any other factor. As long as people of the creationist stamp wield the instinct-club, just so long will they be unable to grasp the idea of intelligent ratiocination in the lower animals. A company of men rebuilding a wall which has been overthrown by a tempest are said to be governed and directed by reason, while a company of ants doing precisely the same thing, and with just as much intelligence, are said to be directed by instinct! ”

“ After nine years of careful, systematic, and painstaking investigation, I am prepared to affirm that, besides the senses, sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, and tinctumutation, certain animals have yet another sense, the sense of locality, or of direction, commonly called the "homing instinct." This remarkable function of the mind is not an instinct any more than the sense of sight or smell is an instinct, but is, on the contrary, a true sense ”

“ My fox terrier has a brain which, in all essential details, does not differ from that of man, and my observations teach me that his mind is the same in kind as that of man as far as memory, emotions, and reason are concerned; then why deny him the possession of abstraction in some degree? I do not mean that abstraction which enables a man to soar into realms of thought infinitely above any effort of ideation to be attained by any of the lower animals, but abstraction in its embryonic state. I am convinced, by actual experimentation, that this dog falls into "brown studies" just as man does ”

“ I have kept alive in my room specimens of Heliconidæ for six and eight months, while mud-dauber wasps have repeatedly wintered in my room, and have witnessed the outcomings of spring broods. Thus, it not infrequently happens that these insect mothers are gratified by a sight of their offspring, though sometimes they evince painstaking care and solicitude toward creatures which they will never see. ”

“ When a stimulus passes over a nerve to a ganglion, it leaves upon it an impression which remains for a shorter or longer time as the stimulus is great or small. Now, when a stimulus is again applied to the nerve, the impression wave follows in the footsteps, as it were, of the first impression wave, and the ganglion reflects or transfers it just as before, thus showing that nerve has another peculiar quality—that of memory. ”

“ Could man do more or reason better? Here was an experience which had not happened to them in hundreds and hundreds of generations, perhaps; which, perhaps, had never happened to them before, and yet, when it did happen, their quick intelligence readily grasped the situation, and they at once set about remedying the evil. [77]
A mud-dauber wasp built a nest in my room, and used an open ventilating window as an entrance and exit. On one occasion this window happened to be closed, and the wasp, not noticing the clear glass, flew against it with great violence. ”

“ In this instance the ant is led at first by her sense of direction alone; as soon, however, as she comes to country which she has hunted over, and with which she is familiar, memory comes into play and the sense of direction ceases to act, or, if it acts at all, it acts unconsciously. ”

“ At intervals of a minute or two it will strike the wall with its mandibles, making a peculiar sound. This is answered by the workers with a loud hiss and a marked acceleration in their movements. Should these ants again be disturbed, the laborers would vanish, and the warriors would take their places, ready and willing to fight to the death in defence of their community. [82]
While it is undoubtedly true that instinct can be highly differentiated, so that in its action it seemingly approaches reason, it is also equally true that instinct, fundamentally, is but a blind impulse. ”

“ So true is this rule, that the single exception—the spider—proves the verity of the deduction or conclusion. For, like many men, the spider's love for the beautiful, not only in music but in decorative effects as well, is intimately associated with murder-lust; it kills for the love of killing. Many examples of the association of great cruelty and profound love for the beautiful in nature and the arts might be given ”

“ It is beyond reason to suppose that this dog discovered the absence of her young one through her sense of smell. Granted that to the maternal nose each puppy had an individual and particular odor (which I do not believe) , it is hardly possible, nay, it is impossible, that the dog's sensorium had recognized and retained these different scents in the short time which had elapsed since their birth. It is much more reasonable to suppose that the dog knew that she had given birth to six young ones, and that she had counted them when they had been removed to their new home. ”

“ At the present time, science declares, emphatically, that man is but a mammal, whose brain has undergone exceptional evolutionary development. He is but the younger kinsman of other mammals whose evolutionary development has sought other channels; these, in turn, are but younger kin of yet older animals, and so on backwards, to the beginning of life in bathybian protoplasm. The resistless forces of evolution have placed him where he is, and no amount of self-adulation can hide the scientific fact that he is not a special creation. ”

“ I do not mean that abstraction which renders the civilized human being so immeasurably superior to all other animals, but rather that primal, fundamental abstraction from which the highly specialized function of man has been developed. The faculty of computing in animals is one evidence of the presence of this psychical trait in its crude and undeveloped state. The quality of abstraction in such ideation is not very high, it is true, yet it is abstraction, nevertheless. ”

“ Sight is the result of the conversion of one form of motion into another—a conservation, as it were, of energy. Thus, waves of light coming from a luminous body are arrested by the pigment-cells of the retina in our eyes and are transmuted into another form of motion, which is called nerve energy (in this instance, sight) . ”

“ Birds will defend their young to their uttermost abilities and will often yield up their lives in unequal combats with the ravagers of their nests. Last summer I saw two jays whip in a fair fight a large cat, which had attempted to rob their nest. They seemed to have arranged the order of combat with one another before they attacked the would-be ravisher of their home. The male bird confined his attack to the cat's head, while the female went at its body with beak and talons. ”

“ They gather the eggs of the aphides, carry them into a specially built nursery, attend them carefully until the young aphides are hatched out, and then carry them to the shrubs most liked by them for food. Some strange sense enables them to recognize one another—an ant of the same species, but coming from another nest, is immediately recognized as a stranger, and at once attacked. If the eggs of one ant colony are hatched out in another of the same species, the young ants are at once known to be strangers and intruders. ”

“ The love of cleanliness seems to be inherent in the lower animals, with but few exceptions. We have all noticed the cat, the dog, the squirrel, the monkey, and the birds at toilet-making; and we know that they spend a large portion of their time in cleansing and beautifying their bodies. Some of them are dependent on their own ministrations, while others are greatly assisted by humble little servants, whose only remuneration is domicile, the cast-off clothing, or the garbage and refuse from their host's table. ”

“ Spiders are decorative artists of no little ability. I saw one which spun a web, beautifully adorned it with a broad, silken pathway, and then used it as a pleasure resort; I also saw a spider which intentionally beautified its web by affixing to it hundreds of minute flakes of logwood dye; [60] thus we see that the æstheticism of spiders is not confined to the love of music, but extends to other fields. ”

“ Probably of all the lower animals, the male satin or bower bird of New South Wales has the decorative feeling the most developed. This bird builds a pleasure resort, a summer-house, or, rather, dance hall, which he ornaments profusely with every glittering, shining, striking object that he can carry to his bower in the depths of the forest. ”

“ Again, if the larvæ of ants are removed, hatched outside of the nest, and then returned, the ants at once recognize them as kinsmen and receive them into the nest.
When we take into the consideration that an ant's brain has gray matter analogous to the gray matter found in the cortex of the human brain, we should not feel surprised when we find striking evidences of ratiocination in these little creatures. The better creatures are able to communicate ideation or thought, the stronger and more frequent are the evidences of their possession of reason. Ants can undoubtedly communicate ”

“ Morphology and physiology are interdependent, correlated, and connected one with the other; and, as I will endeavor to point out as my argument develops itself, psychology is, likewise, intimately associated with these two manifestations of life.
It will be noticed that as forms take on more complexity, and as organs develop new and more complex functions, psychos becomes less simple in its manifestations, and more complex in its relations to the internal and external operations of life. ”

“ This is truly a wonderful picture of mental and physical degeneration incident to the enervating influences of slavery. That it is a true one, an abundance of data most emphatically declares. The influence of slavery on the human race (the masters) shows very plainly that man himself quickly, comparatively speaking, loses his stamina when subjected to it. ”

“ The wielders of the instinct club bitterly deny that any of the lower animals ever show an intelligent appreciation of new surroundings, that they ever evince intelligent ratiocination. They close their eyes even to the data collected by the chiefs of their tribe, Agassiz, Kirby, Spence, et al., and go on their way shouting hosannas to omniscient, all-powerful Instinct! ”

“ The young ant is conducted by them throughout the whole nest, and shown all the devious passageways and corridors. When it makes its first visit into the outside world, it is always accompanied by several chaperons. This parental love, if I may use the expression, is even extended to the unhatched eggs. If an ants' nest is disturbed by a stroke of a spade or hoe, the little inhabitants will at once begin to remove eggs, pupæ, and young to a place of safety.
This parental love is even evinced by insects who never see their offspring. ”

“ And, since this centre has been found in certain species, and that, too, in creatures very low in the scale of animal life, it is reasonable to infer that it is present in the brains (ganglia) of all those animals which evince the so-called "homing instinct."
In the process of civilization certain of the five senses in man become dull and blunted; thus, the sense of smell in the Tagals of the Philippine Islands is much more acute than it is in the civilized European, and what is true of the sense of smell is also true of the other senses, save that of touch, in all primitive peoples. ”

“ We see, in periopthalmus, a creature exceedingly well adapted by form, function, and intelligence to its manner of life. We must admit, in fact, the correlation and interdependence of morphology, physiology, and psychology in the evolution of this creature from its ancestral form to its present status.
The primitive organ of audition as it is to be observed in creatures of simple, comparatively speaking, organization is as simple as is the anatomy of the animals in which it is found. Commonly, it is a hollow hair, which is connected by a minute nerve-filament with the sensorium. ”

“ When one of the lower animals evinces unusual intelligence, or gives unmistakable evidences of reason, they account for it by saying that "it is only instinct highly specialized, or, at least, a so-called 'intelligent' accident." ”

“ Stimson Lambert of Owensboro, Kentucky, a careful and accurate observer, informs me that he has frequently observed the large red ants (F. rufa) helping their mutilated or crippled companions.
Ants exhibit another emotion that shows the high development of their psychical or emotional nature. In the tender watchfulness and care of their young they are surpassed by no living creature. As soon as the young ant bursts its pupa case, it is carefully assisted into the world by its foster-mothers. ”

“ The microscope shows that these animals have notochords, nervous systems, and ganglia, or brains. With a one-sixteenth objective, and an achromatic light condenser, I have been able to differentiate the gray matter in the brain of an ant, and even, on two occasions, to bring out the cells and filaments of the cortex. Here in the brain of an ant, is an anatomical and physiological similarity to the brain of man: therefore, it is reasonable to expect evidences of mental operations in the ant akin to those of man. ”

“ Marked bees and ants invariably return to places where they have found food-supplies, thus showing the possession of a memory of locality and route. It is very interesting to watch a marked ant during her journey back to her nest, after she has been carried away and placed among unfamiliar scenes and surroundings. ”