[82] Compare Kirby and Spence, _Entomology_.
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. The impulse to fight on the part of these soldier termites is, unquestionably, instinctive, but the psychical habitudes which originate division and partition of labor, which set apart certain individuals (in no wise different from their fellows) as officers and overseers, which, beyond peradventure, are able to incite the laborers to greater effort by commands that are clearly understood and intelligently obeyed, surely such psychical characteristics cannot be embraced in the category of instinctive impulses--mere blind followings-out of inherited impressions!
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![83]
[83] It is often the case that animals find themselves amid surroundings in which they are required to evince original ideation and fail so to do. But, is man any different? How often do we find ourselves checkmated and puzzled by trivial circumstances, which, on being explained, are seen to be exceedingly simple!--W.
In the neighborhood of Hell's-Half-Acre, a desolate and rocky valley a short distance from Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1887, I discovered several communities of harvester ants, and closely and carefully observed their habits. The first time I noticed them was early in the spring, when they seemed to be engaged in planting their grain. They were bringing out the little grass-seeds by the hundreds and thousands, and carrying them some distance from the nest, where they were dropped on the turf. It is possible that these ants were only getting rid of spoiled grain, but I think not, for several of the seeds secured and planted by me germinated. I observed them again in about a month, and the grass was growing finely on the plat where they had deposited the seeds. Not a single stalk of any other kind of grass and not a single weed were to be seen in this model grain-field. The ants had evidently removed every plant that might interfere with the growth of their grain.