Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/303

 ANATOMY. 271

of the brain in similar order which corresponds to this result of external observation. (According to Flourens and Fr. Cuvier.) l Among the reptiles, serpents are the most intelligent, for they may even be trained; this is so, because they are beasts of prey and propagate more slowly than the rest especially the venomous ones. And here also, as with the physical weapons, we find the will everywhere as the prius [earlier]; its equipment, the intellect, as the posterius [later]. Beasts of prey do not hunt, nor do foxes thieve, because they have more intelligence; on the contrary, they have more intelligence, just as they have stronger teeth and claws too, because they wished to live by hunting and thieving. The fox even made up at once for his inferiority in muscular power and strength of teeth by the extraordinary subtility of his understanding. Our thesis is singularly illustrated by the case of the bird dodo or dronte (didus ineptus) on the island of Mauritius, whose species, it is well known, has died out, and which, as its Latin name denotes, was exceedingly stupid, and this explains its disappearance; so that here it seems indeed as if Nature had for once gone too far in her lex parsimoniae and thereby in a sense brought forth an abortion in the species, as she so often does in the individual, which was unable to subsist, precisely because it was an abortion. If, on this occasion, anyone were to raise the question as to whether Nature ought not to have provided insects with at least sufficient intelligence to prevent them from flying into the flame of a candle, our answer would be: most certainly; only she did not know that men would make candles and light them, and natura nihil agit frustra [nature does nothing in vain (Aristotle, De incessu animalium, cap. 2, p. 704b 15)]. Insect intelligence is therefore only insufficient where the surroundings are artificial. 2

1 The most intelligent birds are also birds of prey, wherefore many of them, especially falcons, are highly susceptible of training. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

2 That the negroes should have become the special victims of the slave-trade, is evidently a consequence of the inferiority of their intelligence in relation to other races; yet this circumstance does not warrant the business of slavery. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

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