He had wondered, as had most people at one time or another, precisely
why an android bounced helplessly about when confronted by an
empathy-measuring test. Empathy, evidently, existed only within the
human community, whereas intelligence in some degree could be found
throughout every phylum and order including the arachnids. For one
thing, the empathic faculty probably required an unimpaired group
instinct; a solitary organism, such as a spider, would have no use for
it; in fact it would tend to abort a spider's ability to survive. It
would make him conscious of the desire to live on the part of his prey.
Hence all predators, even highly developed mammals such as cats, would
starve.
-- Philip K. Dick,/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/ (1968;
Ballantine, 1996, pp. 30-1)
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