210 7 he Scottish Naturalist. 



of its being from without, and acting thus by fate, is beyond 

 the moral sphere. Having no will, " it cannot be conceived " 

 as Goodsir says "to possess a choice between right and wrong." 

 Where is the evidence that animate, even the highest of them, 

 ever come within sight of such a power? It might have been well 

 if all scientific men had left it to old Montaigne to lead this 

 evidence. Dr. Lindsay, however, says, "the actions of certain 

 animals, especially those which have been highly educated, 

 such as the dog, show that they possess a distinct conscious- 

 ness, perception, knowledge or appreciation of the nature or 

 meaning of right and wrong, of praise and blame, of rewards 

 and punishments, of justice and injustice, of duty and its obliga- 

 tions, of trust and responsibility, of property and ownership, of 

 moral and immoral actions, of honesty and dishonesty." 

 {Journal of Mental Science, April 1871, p. 50). He then 

 adduces proofs. But the words which Mr. Wallace has employed 

 in dealing with Houzeau, who advances similar reasonings and 

 conclusions, are a fair answer to Dr. Lindsay. "Our author 

 adduces the usual proofs that animals have a sense of right 

 and wrong, but which really show nothing more than that 

 they can be made to acquire certain habits through the fear 

 of punishment, or the expectation of reward." &c. (Nature, vol. 

 vi. 470). Indeed a more conclusive method for convincing 

 any one of competent philosophical attainments, that animals 

 are not moral beings, could hardly be resorted to than just to 

 study the facts and reasonings adduced to show that they are 

 moral beings. One of the first established distinctions between 

 the man and the brute, that of Aristotle, shall no doubt remain 

 to the last. It is the possession by man of a conscience. Dr. 

 Lindsay himself, to all intents and purposes gives up the point, 

 when he says, " this — 'the conscience grounded on fear;'" which 

 is not the conscience at all in Aristotle's sense, " animals un- 

 doubtedly possess. Whether they possess also the gradually 

 developed ' conscience grounded on spontaneous approval,' " 

 which is the conscience of Aristotle and truth, bating something 

 about the "development," "is one of the many probably insolu- 

 ble questions that arise in comparing the mind of other animals 

 with that of man." If " insoluble," or even if as yet unsolved, 

 so far the conclusion that any " animals possess mind of the 

 same nature as that of man," is beyond the premises. But 

 why is comparative Psychology presumably so helpless at this 

 point? If animals do really possess a true conscience, spon- 



