s
sink to the ordinary insect plane. We arrive at like conclusions from
observation of the social termites, or white ants, some species of
which are remarkable for their intelligent cooeperation and division of
duties.

Examples similar in kind may be drawn from the vertebrates. Among the
birds there are none more quick-witted than the social crows, none with
less display of intelligence than the solitary carnivorous species.
Birds are rather gregarious than social. There are few species whose
association is above that of mere aggregation in flight. Those more
distinctively social usually have special habits which indicate
intelligence--as in the often cited instances of their seemingly trying
and executing delinquents. Among the carnivorous mammals the social dog
or wolf tribe displays the intelligent habit of mutual aid. The horses,
oxen, deer, and other gregarious hoofed animals have a degree of
division of duties, but their intelligence is of a lower grade than that
of the dogs and the elephants. On the whole, it may be affirmed that the
social habit is frequently accompanied by instances of special
intelligence to which we find no counterpart among the solitary forms,
and that the highest manifestations of intelligence in the lower animals
are found in those forms which possess communal habits, as the ants,
bees, termites, and beavers.

One important characteristic of the communal animals is that they become
mentally specialized. They round up their powers, build barriers of
habit over which they cannot pass, perform the same acts with such
interminable iteration that what began as intellect sinks back into
instinct. Each individual has fixed duties and is confined within a
limited circle of acts, whose scope it cannot pass, or only to the
minutest extent.

The non-communal social animals, on the contrary, are not thus
restricted. Their intelligence is of a generalized character, and is
capable of developing in new channels. None are tied down to special
duties, each possesses the full powers of all, and they are thus more
open to a continued growth of the intellect than the communal forms. To
this class belongs the ape. Its intelligence is general, not special;
broadly capable of development, not narrowed and bound in by the
limitation of certain fixed and special duties.

The suggestions above offered point to three grades of community among
animals, which may be designated the communal, the social, and the