Chap. II.] MENTAL POWERS. 45 



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 unlearned 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 remarks that his 

 dogs, instead of continuing to draw the sledges in a com- 

 pact body, diverged and separated when they came to 

 thin ice, so that their weight might be more evenly dis- 

 tributed. This was often the first warning and notice 

 which the travellers received that the ice was becoming 

 thin and dangerous. Now, did the dogs act thus from 

 the experience of each individual, or from the example of 

 the older and wiser dogs, or from an inherited habit, that 

 is, from an instinct ? This instinct might possibly have 

 arisen since the time, long ago, when dogs were first em- 

 ployed by the natives in drawing their sledges ; or the 

 Arctic wolves, the parent-stock of the Esquimaux dog, 

 may have acquired this instinct, impelling them not to 

 attack their prey in a close pack when on thin ice. Ques- 

 tions of this kind are most difficult to answer. 



So many facts have been recorded in various works 

 showing that animals possess some degree of reason, that 

 I will here give only two or three instances, authenticated 

 by Rengger, and relating to American monkeys, which 

 stand low in their order. He states that when he first 

 gave eggs to his monkeys, they smashed them and thus 



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. 



