Yet what prevents us from interpretin g this driven activity on the part of the bee as comportment toward the present honey, as a recognition of the same as present or no longer present? If the bee does not recognize the presence of something, if the recognition of mere presence at hand as a specific manner of being pertaining to the honey is excluded, what is it then that governs and directs its behaviour, its flight and its return to the hive, since the bee obviously stands in some specific relation to the blossom, the scent, the hive, and so forth, i.e., to its whole environment?
The situation becomes clearer if we consider a different case which has received particular experimental support. A bee was placed before a little bowl filled with so much honey that the bee was unable to suck up the honey all at once. It begins to suck and then after a while breaks off this driven activity of sucking and flies off, leaving the rest of the honey still present in the bowl. If we wanted to explain this activity, we would have to say that the bee recognizes that it cannot cope with all the honey present. It breaks off its driven activity because it recognizes the presence of too much honey for it. Yet, it has been observed that if its abdomen is carefully cut away while it is sucking, a bee will simply carry on regardless even while the honey runs out of the bee from behind. This shows conclusively that the bee by no means recognizes the presence of too much honey. It recognizes neither this nor even-though this would be expected to touch it more closely—the absence of its abdomen. There is no question of it recognizing any of this, it continues with its driven activity regardless precisely because it does not recognize that plenty of honey is still present. Rather, the bee is simply taken [hingenommen] by its food. This being taken is only possible where there is an instinctual 'toward . . . . ' Yet such a driven being taken also excludes the possibility of any recognition of presence. It is precisely being taken by its food that prevents the animal from taking up a position over and against this food.
But why does the bee break off its sucking if the abdomen is not removed? We may say that it does so because it has had enough. But why has it had enough now, and why has it not had enough when the abdomen is missing? Because its sense of satisfaction is registered as long as the abdomen remains in place, as long as the animal remains organically intact. This sense of satisfaction cannot be registered in the bee if its abdomen is missing. And what is this sense o f satisfaction? It is a state of being satiated. It is this satiation which inhibits the bee's driven activity. Thus we talk about the inhibiting behavioural effect of satiation. Exactly how this takes place, whether it is a reflex action or a chemical process or something else again, is a matter of controversy. But that is not the decisive issue for us here. We must merely see that. insofar as satiation inhibits this drive, it is indeed related to the animal's nourishment. But intrinsically and fundamentally i t is never a recognition of the presence of nourishment or of the amount of n ourishment available. Satiation is a quite