46 THE DESCENT OF MAN. Part I. 



" character say yes or no — to the devil with him ; he is 

 " only a stupid corpse." Dreaming gives us the best 

 notion of this power ; as Jean Paul again says, " The 

 " dream is an involuntary art of poetry." The value of 

 the products of our imagination depends of course on 

 the number, accuracy, and clearness of our impressions ; 

 on our judgment and taste in selecting or rejecting the 

 involuntary combinations, and to a certain extent on 

 our power of voluntarily combining them. As dogs, 

 cats, horses, and probably all the higher animals, even 

 birds, as is stated on good authority, 14 have vivid dreams, 

 and this is shewn by their movements and voice, we must 

 admit that they possess some power of imagination. 



Of all the faculties of the human mind, it will, I 

 presume, be admitted that Beason stands at the summit. 

 Few persons any longer dispute that animals possess 

 some power of reasoning. Animals may constantly be 

 seen to pause, deliberate, and resolve. It is a significant 

 fact, that the more the habits of any particular animal 

 are studied by a naturalist, the more he attributes to 

 reason and the less to unlearnt instincts. 15 In future 

 chapters we shall see that some animals extremely low in 

 the scale apparently display a certain amount of reason. 

 No doubt it is often difficult to distinguish between the 

 power of reason and that of instinct. Thus Dr. Hayes, 

 in his work on * The Open Polar Sea,' repeatedly re- 

 marks that his dogs, instead of continuing to draw the 

 sledges in a compact body, diverged and separated when 

 they came to thin ice, so that their weight might be 

 more evenly distributed. This was often the first warn- 



14 Dr. Jerdon, ' Birds of India,' vol. i. 1862, p. xxi. 



15 Mr. L. H. Morgan's work on ' The American Beaver,' 1868, offers 

 a good illustration of this remark. I cannot, however, avoid thinking 

 that he goes too far in underrating the power of Instinct. 



