Note 4 — Chapter vii · ADVANCED THEORIES

‘Darwin,4 who wrote a book on purpose to prove the identity of the intellectual principle actuating men and animals, was walking one day in his garden when he saw on the path a Sphex who had just possessed herself of a Fly almost as large as herself. He saw her cut off the victim’s head and abdomen with her mandibles, keeping only the thorax, to which the wings remained attached, after which she flew away; but a breath of wind, striking the Fly’s wings, made the Sphex spin round and prevented her progress; hereupon she alighted again on the path, cut off one of the Fly’s wings and then the other, and, after thus destroying the cause of her difficulties, resumed her flight with what remained of her prey. This fact carries with it manifest signs of reasoning power. Instinct might have led this Sphex to cut off her victim’s wings before carrying it to her nest, as do some species of the same genus; but here there was a sequence of ideas and results from those ideas, which are quite inexplicable unless we allow the intervention of reason.’