HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



75 



notions artificially produced by the training of man, 

 or they result from imitation, which may be regarded 

 as a sort of spontaneous training. Those domestic 

 and other animals, such as the dog, horse, and 

 elephant, that constantly associate with man, neces- 

 sarily possess manifold advantages as regards this 

 latter species of pilotage. Mankind in their actions 

 and conduct may be guided by general notions ; but 

 there is no proof whatever that the lower animals can 

 be influenced likewise. A man, for instance, may go 

 to consult an unknown doctor, being guided to him by 

 the general notion of a "good doctor ; " but no dog 

 or monkey was ever seen to go to an unknown baker's 

 shop with the general notion of a " baker's shop " to 

 pilot his steps. A man entering a strange town sees 

 rolls in a certain window, and immediately conclud- 

 ing, by reasoning or perhaps by association, that 

 there lies a baker's shop, he goes in and makes a 

 purchase. But no dog or other animal is capable of 

 such conduct : no dog ever proceeded to a strange 

 baker's shop with a penny in his mouth in order to 

 purchase rolls, unless he had been specially trained 

 to perform the feat in regard to a certain baker's 

 shop in particular, or unless his "bump of imita- 

 tion " was particularly well developed. No doubt a 

 dog, wandering in a part of the country where he has 

 never been before, may on seeing a well forthwith 

 drink if he be thirsty ; but he does not recognize the 

 spot as a well, or the water as water. He lowers his 

 mouth and his senses tell him that there is water 

 before him — and that's all. Every fresh perception 

 of any particle of water is as it were a new perception 

 to the animal, although the memory of former similar 

 perceptions may or may not be added thereto. If 

 the dog had to ask for the water otherwise than by 

 simple "begging," or by making the usual canine 

 signs, i.e., if he was compelled to explain by language 

 or by common names what it was that he required, 

 his powers would utterly fail him here, and he would 

 assuredly forfeit his drink. The mind of the lower 

 animals cannot possibly grasp the abstract or the 

 general-motion ; it cannot by an act of will and by 

 creative imagination call up and reflect upon different 

 plans or methods of performing a certain contemplated 

 action ; and it cannot judge beforehand that certain 

 means are fitted to accomplish certain ends, or are 

 the most efficient enginery for the execution of those 

 ends. Where an action depends in any degree upon 

 mediate reasoning, or upon ingenuity (which is a 

 sort of original practical reasoning), brutes are 

 paralysed ; they cannot budge if a general notion of 

 any kind stands in the way. In all those instances 

 where animals have been observed to use as means 

 towards an end materials not forming part of their 

 own organisation, the action is due to (i) a blind 

 instinctive impulse innate, as it were, in the nervous 

 structure of the creature ; or (2) the power of associa- 

 tion of ideas in its various forms of imitation. 



Man can and frequently does deliberately and 



systematically act from principle, i.e., from a general 

 notion of honesty, propriety, prudence, truth, right- 

 eousness, &c, applied to each particular instance 

 that turns up ; but brutes, having no general ideas 

 or principles, and little or no command over their 

 passions, are necessarily the creatures of impulse. 

 This impulse is guided by the association of ideas, 

 and being principally if not wholly an organic spring 

 of action, is fresh or becomes wearied according 

 to the particular organic condition of the animal ; 

 and thus perhaps may be explained the apparent 

 regularity, sanity, and timely cessation of the actions 

 thereof. 



Having expatiated upon the positive functions and 

 resources of the mind of the lower animals, let us 

 now exhibit a catalogue of powers, feats, &c, which 

 it does not display and cannot accomplish, and which 

 the human mind does reveal and is able to execute. 

 The lower animals do not possess the faculties of (1) 

 self-consciousness, (2) constructive or creative imagi- 

 nation, (3) voluntary reminiscence or attention, (4) 

 the intellectual use of language as a symbol of 

 abstract thought, (5) certain mere elevation kinds of 

 emotion, (6) freedom of the will. In consequence of 

 their mental penury in the powers and functions now 

 specified, the lower animals are unable and unfitted 

 to accomplish the following important processes of 

 thought, &c, viz., reflection, abstraction and gener- 

 alization, and the use of language strictly so termed, 

 induction and deduction, the construction of artistic 

 conceptions, &c, virtue and religion. Moreover, the 

 most important at least of the higher forms of the 

 whole tribe of what are styled intuitions or primary 

 truths are never formed by, and are utterly unknown 

 to, these creatures. They possess no artistic sense, 

 they have no refinements of human civilisation, they 

 can cherish no ideals of the beautiful, picturesque, or 

 sublime. They cannot exhibit religion or virtue 

 or feel the weight of responsibility, i.e., they have no 

 sense of good as good and of binding obligation, nor 

 have they a sense of evil as evil, and as deserving of 

 disapproval. In fine, brutes cannot by voluntary 

 contemplation or otherwisej modify in any way the 

 relative force of different motives or appetencies. 

 They cannot elaborate ideas of God, of infinity, of 

 the beautiful, the lovely or unlovely, space, moral 

 good, &c. 



Can Pigs Swim ? — The idea mentioned by 

 W. H. J., at p. 70, is one of those absurd popular 

 errors that have a knack of reappearing time after 

 time, though constantly refuted. I have seen a pig 

 swim, and I have known many instances at Warren- 

 point where "piggy" took a header rather than be 

 shipped for England. And so far from cutting his 

 throat " the gentleman that used to pay the rent " 

 performed the feat with an ease and speed that an 

 Irish water spaniel might envy. — H. IV. Lett, M.A. 



£ 2 



