THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A DOG. 515 





 the group into which Toots would be placed in a bench show. I 

 suspect he is a somewhat mixed individual. He has the pointed 

 nose, large brain-capsule, small drooping ears, and rough coat of 

 the collie, with the short legs of the dachshund, and weighs about 

 ten pounds. His mother was left by an English gentleman in 

 charge of a scissors-grinder in San Diego. She was stone-blind. 

 Her most remarkable feat was a return to her home by the lead 

 of her nose, after having been transported to a place six miles 

 away. 



The mental development of this dog so closely resembles the 

 unfolding of the human intellect during infancy, that it will be 

 well to bring the two sets of phenomena into comparison. Let us 

 break the thread of this narrative long enough to refer to some 

 mental characteristics of the baby. 



A very old objection to the possession, by animals, of mind 

 higher than that manifested in instinct is founded in an equally 

 old fallacy, that thinking is impossible separate from an acquaint- 

 ance with the language of speech. Particularly is it urged that 

 general ideas, or concepts, are impossible without words to repre- 

 sent them. If we think only in words, then dogs, who have no 

 words, can not think. Even what we call memory in animals has 

 been restricted to mere " association " by those orthodox philoso- 

 phers from whom some of us have learned our lessons. It has 

 not been without a struggle against prejudice that we are able to 

 give the dog his due. 



Prof. Preyer, in his excellent work on The Development of the 

 Intellect, has, to my thought, proved conclusively that the baby, 

 even before it has learned to speak, thinks and forms general 

 ideas. By carefully registered observations, extending through a 

 period of forty months of infant life, the Jena psychologist finds 

 that, so early as the second month, the baby begins the " associa- 

 tion of memory-images." The possession of this primitive faculty 

 is proved not only by many examples of infants who in due 

 time learn to speak, but by the most remarkable practical demon- 

 stration in the development of deaf-mutes. 



Nothing further could be desired in the way of positive proof 

 of the power to generalize, in the first years of life, than that the 

 deaf-mute expresses the concept " red " by touching his red lips, 

 and then pointing to the redness of the sunset sky. From a wide 

 induction of such facts. Prof. Preyer safely concludes that " many 

 concepts are, without any learning of words whatever, plainly ex- 

 pressed and logically combined with one another, and their cor- 

 rectness is proved by the conduct of any and every untaught child 

 born deaf." And he further sums up his case by declaring that 

 " it was not language that generated the intellect ; it is the intel- 

 lect that formerly invented language ; and even now the newborn 



