i 7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



also impregnable. Animals feel and reason, but have not the power of 

 deciding for themselves. From the point of view of feeling or common 

 sense, the latter system is much more acceptable than the other. It 

 may even be said that it satisfies the mind and the heart, and imposes 

 no hindrance to scientific research. This has also been proved by 

 Schwann's own example. But it is not less certainly irreconcilable 

 with transformist theories of the descent of man ; by it man should 

 have a place aj^art in Nature. 



The stories that have been recently published and held up to atten- 

 tion, as illustrations of the intelligence of animals, have really no bear- 

 ing unless they indicate that animal intelligence is comparable to ours, 

 in the sense that a passage may take place from one to the other by 

 insensible degrees. Otherwise there would be no need of the demon- 

 stration ; and Schwann as well as Darwin, Malebranche as well as 

 Descartes, might subscribe to it ; for we might say that, in a certain 

 sense, a mechanism is intelligent. 



Now, there are some facts that bear against the assimilation of the 

 two kinds of intelligence. An infant, which in the beginning seems 

 less intelligent than a young puppy, very early manifests its superior- 

 ity ; and one of the first things it learns is that which can not with 

 any amount of attention be taught to a dog. It is the capacity of our 

 race for improvement in contrast with the immobility that seems to 

 attach to animal races. Need we, to illustrate this, speak of ma- 

 chines and tools, writing, and the fine arts ? It is true that there are 

 monkeys that can defend themselves with sticks and pebbles ; fish that 

 can throw up drops of water to stun the insects they want to swallow ; 

 and birds that can embellish their nests and form parterres of flowers 

 which they will keep fresh. But these curious stories are not enough 

 to close the discussion. Moreover, however similar these acts may ap- 

 pear in a material sense, they must not always be regarded as mentally 

 alike. When my dog, at my order, brings my slippers or letters, he 

 does not act with the same mind as a servant. 



Indeed, the assimilation is sometimes justifiable. I had occasion in 

 some articles that appeared in the " Revue Philosophique," on Mr. G. 

 H. Lewes's last book (March and April, 1881), to relate a number of 

 stories in which insects, mollusks, and hydras, as well as dogs, be- 

 haved, under particular circumstances, as a man would. Let me re- 

 peat one of them : " I was in the habit of giving bones to my poodle 

 Mouston during dinner, and he would go into the yard to gnaw them. 

 A\ hen the bone was too large for him, I would get up and go out 

 with him, and split it before his eyes with a hatchet. One day, Mous- 

 ton, after having gone out with his bone as usual, came back bringing 

 it in his mouth, fixed himself in front of me and wagged his tail. I 

 ordered him back, but he persisted in staying where he was. Finally, 

 I thought of what he wanted and arose, while the animal indulged 

 himself in leaps of satisfaction. The trouble was, that the bone was 



