Chap. III. Mental Powers. 83 



over its head. In these several habits, we probably see the first 

 steps towards some of the simpler arts, such as rude architecture 

 and dress, as they arose amongst the early progenitors of man. 



Abstraction, General Conceptions, fcelf -consciousness, Men til 

 Individuality. — It would be very difficult for any one with even 

 much more knowledge than I possess, to determine how far 

 animals exhibit any traces of these high mental powers. This 

 difficulty arises from the impossibility of judging what passes 

 through the mind of an animal ; and again, the fact that writers 

 differ to a great extent in the meaning which they attribute to 

 the above terms, causes a further difficulty. If one may judge 

 from various articles which have been published lately, the 

 greatest stress seems to be laid on the supposed entire absence 

 in animals of the power of abstraction, or of forming general 

 concepts. But when a dog sees another dog at a distance, it is 

 often clear that he perceives that it is a dog in the abstract ; for 

 when he gets nearer his whole manner suddenly changes, if the 

 other dog be a friend. A recent writer remarks, that in all such 

 cases it is a pure assumption to assert that the mental act is 

 not essentially of the same nature in the animal as in man. It 

 either refers what he perceives with his senses to a mental 

 concept, then so do both.* 1 When I say to my terrier, in an 

 eager voice (and I have made the trial many times), " Hi, hi, 

 where is it ? " she at once takes it as a sign that something is to 

 be hunted, and generally first looks quickly all around, and 

 then rushes into the nearest thicket, to scent for any game, but 

 finding nothing, she looks up into any neighbouring- tree for a 

 squirrel. Now do not these actions clearly shew that she had in 

 her mind a general idea or concept that some animal is to be 

 discovered and hunted ? 



It may be freely admitted that no animal is self-conscious, 

 if by this term it is implied, that he reflects on such points, as 

 whence he comes or whither he will go, or what is life and death, 

 and so forth. But how can we feel sure that an old dog with an 

 excellent memory and some power of imagination, as shewn by 

 his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures or pains in the 

 chase ? And this would be a form of self-consciousness. On tho 

 other hand, as Buchner 45 has remarked, how little can the hard- 

 worked wife of a degraded Australian savage, who uses very 

 few abstract words, and cannot count above four, exert her self- 

 consciousness, or reflect on the nature of her own existence. It 

 is generally admitted, that the higher animals possess memory, 



44 Mr. Hookham, in a letter to 45 ' Conferences but la Th£ori< 



O rof. Max Miiller, in the ' Birming- I)arwinienne,' French transiat. 

 ham News,' May 1873. *.$69, p. 1"32. 



