WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN

O.M. It would elevate the savage if he had it. But let us

look further before we decide. The ant has soldiers–battalions,

regiments, armies; and they have their appointed captains and

generals, who lead them to battle.

Y.M. That could be instinct, too.

O.M. We will look still further. The ant has a system of

government; it is well planned, elaborate, and is well carried on.

Y.M. Instinct again.

O.M. She has crowds of slaves, and is a hard and unjust

employer of forced labor.

Y.M. Instinct.

O.M. She has cows, and milks them.

Y.M. Instinct, of course.

O.M. In Texas she lays out a farm twelve feet square, plants it,

weeds it, cultivates it, gathers the crop and stores it away.

Y.M. Instinct, all the same.

O.M. The ant discriminates between friend and stranger.

Sir John Lubbock took ants from two different nests, made them

drunk with whiskey and laid them, unconscious, by one of the

nests, near some water. Ants from the nest came and examined and

discussed these disgraced creatures, then carried their friends

home and threw the strangers overboard. Sir John repeated the

experiment a number of times. For a time the sober ants did as

they had done at first–carried their friends home and threw the

strangers overboard. But finally they lost patience, seeing that

their reformatory efforts went for nothing, and threw both

friends and strangers overboard. Come–is this instinct, or is

it thoughtful and intelligent discussion of a thing new–

absolutely new–to their experience; with a verdict arrived at,

sentence passed, and judgment executed? Is it instinct?–thought

petrified by ages of habit–or isn’t it brand-new thought,

inspired by the new occasion, the new circumstances?

Y.M. I have to concede it. It was not a result of habit;

it has all the look of reflection, thought, putting this and that

together, as you phrase it. I believe it was thought.

O.M. I will give you another instance of thought. Franklin

had a cup of sugar on a table in his room. The ants got at it.

He tried several preventives; and ants rose superior to them.

Finally he contrived one which shut off access–probably set the

table’s legs in pans of water, or drew a circle of tar around the

cup, I don’t remember. At any rate, he watched to see what they

would do. They tried various schemes–failures, every one. The

ants were badly puzzled. Finally they held a consultation,

discussed the problem, arrived at a decision–and this time they

beat that great philosopher. They formed in procession, cross

the floor, climbed the wall, marched across the ceiling to a

point just over the cup, then one by one they let go and fell

down into it! Was that instinct–thought petrified by ages of

inherited habit?

Y.M. No, I don’t believe it was. I believe it was a newly

reasoned scheme to meet a new emergency.

O.M. Very well. You have conceded the reasoning power in

two instances. I come now to a mental detail wherein the ant is

a long way the superior of any human being. Sir John Lubbock

proved by many experiments that an ant knows a stranger ant of

her own species in a moment, even when the stranger is disguised

–with paint. Also he proved that an ant knows every individual

in her hive of five hundred thousand souls. Also, after a year’s

absence one of the five hundred thousand she will straightway

recognize the returned absentee and grace the recognition with a

affectionate welcome. How are these recognitions made? Not by

color, for painted ants were recognized. Not by smell, for ants

that had been dipped in chloroform were recognized. Not by

speech and not by antennae signs nor contacts, for the drunken

and motionless ants were recognized and the friend discriminated

from the stranger. The ants were all of the same species,

therefore the friends had to be recognized by form and feature–

friends who formed part of a hive of five hundred thousand! Has

any man a memory for form and feature approaching that?

Y.M. Certainly not.

O.M. Franklin’s ants and Lubbuck’s ants show fine

capacities of putting this and that together in new and untried