296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by what we are pleased to call instinct, as opj)osed to reason. Yet 

 tliere is every gradation between the two. 



Among the various races of dogs, the companions of man for un- 

 numbered centuries, we observe not only reasoning jjowers of a rather 

 high order, but also distinct traces of moral sentiments, similar to 

 those possessed by our own race. I will give no examjjles, for many 

 may be found in books with which you are familiar. Actions evincing 

 the same mental attributes are also noticed in wild animals which 

 have been tamed. You will reply that these qualities have been de- 

 veloped by human education ; but not so : there must have been a 

 latent capacity in the brain to receive the education, and to manifest 

 the results by the modification of the habits. Now, it is because we 

 are vertebrates, and the animals of which I have spoken are verte- 

 brates, that we understand, though imperfectly, their mental pro- 

 cesses, and can develop tlie powers that are otherwise latent. Could 

 we comprehend them more fully we would find, and we do find from 

 time to time in the progress of our inquiries, that what was classed 

 with instinct is really intellection. 



When we attempt to observe animals belonging to another sub- 

 kingdom Articulata, for instance such as bees, ants, termites, etc., 

 which are built upon a totally difiereut plan of structure, having no 

 organ in common with ourselves, the difliculty of interpreting their 

 intellectual processes, if they perform any, is still greater. The pur- 

 poses of their actions we can only divine by their results. But any 

 thing more exact than their knowledge of the objects within their 

 scope, more ingenious than their methods for using those objects, more 

 complex, yet well devised, than their social and political systems, it is 

 impossible to conceive. 



We are not warranted in assuming that these actions are instinc- 

 tive, whicli if performed by a vertebrate we would call rational. In- 

 stead of concealing; our io;norauce under a word which thus used comes 

 to mean nothino-, let us rather admit the existence here of a rational 

 power, not only inferior to ours, but also difierent. 



Thus proceeding, from the highest forms in each type of animal 

 life to the lower, and even down to the lowest, we may be prepared 

 te advance the thesis that all animals are intelligent, in proportion to 

 the ability of their organization to manifest intelligence to us or to 

 each other ; that wherever there is voluntary motion, there is intelli- 

 gence : obscure it may be, not comprehended by us, but comprehended 

 by the companions of the same low grade of structure. 



However this may be, I do not intend to discuss the subject at 

 present, but only wish in connection with this train of thouglit to ofier 

 two suggestions. 



The first is, that by pursuing difl'erent courses of investigation in 

 biology, we may be led to opposite results. Commencing with the 

 simplest forms of animal life, or with the embryo of the higher ani- 



