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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



The Ancient River Deposit of the Amazon. 

 — Mr. Barrington Brown has contributed a paper on 

 this important subject to the Geological Society. 

 The author described a series of alluvial deposits, 

 varying in thickness from 10 to 160 feet, which have 

 been cut through by the river, and form a series of 

 cliffs, giving rise to striking and characteristic 

 scenery. The succession of beds exposed in these 

 cliffs was illustrated by a number of sections, and it 

 was shown that the strata in question must have been 

 deposited by river action. It was then pointed out 

 that the river is performing two classes of work, 

 namely, cutting away the older sheets of alluvial 

 matter, and depositing the materials derived from 

 them at a much lower level. The interesting phe- 

 nomena of the cutting of curves by the river, and the 

 abandonment by the river of parts of these curves, 

 giving rise to the formation of lakes, was fully ex- 

 plained ; and in conclusion the author showed by a 

 map what vast areas in South America have thus 

 been covered by these alluvial deposits. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Intelligence in Man and Animals. — Instinct 

 may be described as a blind adaptation of means to 

 ends ; reason, as a conscious adaptation of means to 

 ends. The principal features of instinctive actions 

 may be enumerated as follows : They are performed 

 in early life, are reflex and of much complexity, 

 rhythmical, performed without any guidance from 

 experience, they are executed in precisely the same 

 manner by all the individuals of a species, they carry 

 out a design which is formed for the animal operator 

 by it, they are prompted by an organic sense of need, 

 and are directly adapted thereto ; and finally, they 

 correspond with the sensori motor actions of man. 

 Even in certain remarkable cases (as in the well- 

 known instance of a pair of jackdaws erecting a cone 

 of sticks six feet high as a support for their nest 

 which had previously slid down several times from 

 a sloping window-sill) where animals appear to have 

 actually profited by experience, it has been considered 

 that the business of mental analysis and abstraction 

 is here performed^/- them, and that they do not here 

 act with a conscious view to consequences. Some of 

 your correspondents have asked whether the intelli- 

 gence of animals differs from that of man in kind? 

 If we consider intelligence as the faculty of know- 

 ledge, it is difficult to understand what is meant by 

 different kinds of intelligence. We either know more 

 or less about an object ; but as for different kinds of 

 knowledge (except it be the question of mediate and 

 immediate, perceptive and comparative), that is a 

 peculiarity not easily discernible. The simple ques- 

 tion is, what faculties of knowledge do animals 

 possess, and does man possess the same or different ? 

 No one seems to dispute that sense-perception and 

 memory (as distinguished from reminiscence) and 

 perhaps also a rough faculty of comparison are 

 possessed by animals in a degree by no means lower 

 than that of man. But as for voluntary reminiscence, 

 imagination, the powers of abstraction and com- 

 parison involved in the formation of general notions, 

 or in a complicated deductive or inductive reasoning 

 process, and the various moral faculties, all of which 

 men more or less possess, no one, not even the 



mighty Darwin himself, has ascribed to animals. 

 As we can judge of the animal mind only by its 

 bodily actions, and as, consequently, it is only in 

 reference to action that animals can be shown to 

 possess reason, the only difficulty to be solved is, do 

 animals possess ingenuity and conscious foresight 

 sufficient to forestall their wants, and ingenuity and 

 constructive skill sufficient to take the measures 

 necessary for the supply of those wants? Now, 

 there does not seem to be a shadow of evidence that 

 they do possess such qualities. Their method of 

 working without a trace of hesitation, confusion, or 

 interruption, the circumstances under which they 

 work, the identity of motive in almost every case — 

 all unequivocally suggest the idea of an automaton 

 mechanically operating, rather than that of a rational 

 being working by the light of originally conceived 

 aims and ends. Moreover, there are several well- 

 authenticated instances of the irrationality of instinct 

 (as in the case of a beaver building a dam where there 

 was no water, &c.) which strongly tend to demon- 

 strate the existence of a species of uncontrollable 

 impulse on the part of the animal, that must (like 

 a clock set a-going) as it were inevitably perform 

 certain actions, no matter what the circumstances or 

 the consequences may be. But besides acting with 

 a conscious view to certain ends, animals may act 

 from impulse, i.e., from strong special sensibilities 

 inevitably directing as it were the native life-energy, 

 which is always extremely vigorous amongst the 

 lower animals. A powerful development of the 

 sensori motor ganglia would amply account for this 

 acting from impulse ; and in fact, an anatomical de- 

 monstration of the brain of insects (in which instinct 

 is most powerfully exhibited) exhibits this peculiarity 

 in a very remarkable degree. Now, be it observed, 

 that the sensation which produces this motion may be 

 that of a mental image called up by the association 

 of ideas ; and this important fact will amply elucidate 

 many of the instances of apparent reason or reasoning 

 on the part of animals which have been adduced by 

 some of your correspondents. For example, consider 

 the case of the cat rapping at the door, and then 

 scratching at the window in order to gain admit- 

 tance to certain chambers. The cat knowing the two 

 entrances, when one was closed up, the image of the 

 other was immediately suggested by association, and 

 this idea of the chamber window immediately operated 

 upon pussy's legs, and caused the circumambulating 

 movement described. There was no explicit or im- 

 plicit reasoning process involved ; the act was the 

 result of pure impulse. — P. Q. Keegan, LL.D. 



Intelligence in Man and Animals.— I have 

 read with much interest the discussions in Science- 

 Gossip upon this subject, and it appears to me that 

 in this, as in most controversies, a very considerable 

 amount of the difference between the adverse views 

 expressed arises from the want of a definition at the 

 commencement of the controversy of the subject of 

 discussion. What do your correspondents mean by 

 " reason " ; and what by "instinct " ? Is it not plain 

 that instead of disputing about the same thing, they 

 are in fact only disputing about the same word? If it 

 were not discourteous, I would venture to submit 

 that the whole discussion, so far as it has as yet gone, 

 may be summarised thus : A. says, "I am convinced 

 that brute animals do possess reason, because I mean 

 by ' reason ' something which brute animals show 

 that they possess." B. says, " I maintain that brute 

 animals do not possess reason. For I mean by ' reason ' 

 something that it is obvious that brute animals do not 

 possess." Do not all the observed facts lead to this — 

 that if by " reason" you mean the power of inferring 



