spider feels that it must spin its web, although it neither knows nor understands the aim of it. We are also reminded here of the dæmon of Socrates, on account of which he had the feeling that he must leave undone some action expected of him, or lying near him, without knowing why—for his prophetic dream about it was forgotten. We have in our own day quite well‐authenticated cases analogous to this; therefore I only briefly call these to mind. One had taken his passage on a ship, but when it was about to sail he positively would not go on board without being conscious of a reason;—the ship went down. Another goes with companions to a powder magazine; when he has arrived in its vicinity he absolutely will not go any further, but turns hastily back, seized with anxiety he knows not why;—the magazine blows up. A third upon the ocean feels moved one night, without any reason, not to undress, but lays himself on the bed in his clothes and boots, and even with his spectacles on;—in the night the ship goes on fire, and he is among the few who save themselves in the boat. All this depends upon the dull after‐effect of forgotten fatidical dreams, and gives us the key to an analogous understanding of instinct and mechanical tendencies. On the other hand, as has been said, the mechanical tendencies of insects reflect much light upon the working of the unconscious will in the inner functions of the organism and in its construction. For without any difficulty we can see in the ant‐hill or the beehive the picture of an organism explained and brought to the light of knowledge. In this sense Burdach says (_Physiologie_, vol. ii. p. 22): “The formation and depositing of the eggs is the part of the queen‐bee, and the care for the cultivation of them falls to the workers; thus in the former the ovary, and in the latter the uterus, is individualised.” In the insect society, as in the animal organism, the _vita propria_ of each part is subordinated to the life of the whole, and the care for the whole precedes that for particular existence; indeed the latter is only conditionally willed, the former unconditionally; therefore the individuals are even sacrificed occasionally for the whole, as we allow a limb to be taken off in order to save the whole body. Thus, for example, if the path is closed by water against the march of the ants, those in front boldly throw themselves in until their corpses are heaped up into a dam for those that follow. When the drones have become useless they are stung to death. Two queens in the hive are surrounded, and must fight with each other till one of them loses its life. The ant‐mother bites its own wings off after it has been impregnated, for they would only be a hindrance to it in the work that is before it of tending the new family it is about to found under the earth (Kirby and Spence, vol. i.) As the liver will do nothing more than secrete gall for the service of the digestion, nay, will only itself exist for