262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fervor of his genius. But even of his great promise we could gather 

 no articulate account. He was still in the period of early youth, and 

 perhaps was brooding over the designs by which he hoped to trans- 

 form, in some future day, the world of the cathedral close. But, as a 

 rule, it is certain that we teach our domestic animals as the Cingalese 

 teach their tame elephants, to discourage steadily and effectually every- 

 thing like eccentricities, whether deliberate or capricious, or assertions 

 of liberty, on the part of their wilder colleagues, and so drill them into 

 our dead-level of habit. 



What important variations of character, however, might we not 

 promote if we took more pains to foster what a wnriter of thirty years 

 ago used to call "the individuality of the individual" among our 

 friends of the lower races ! Sir John Lubbock thinks that he has par- 

 tially taught a poodle to read, but, as a correspondent of ours once 

 suggested, that may be a step in the wrong direction — not a develop- 

 ment of the true genius of the dog, but an attempt to merge the genius 

 of the dog in habits peculiar to man, and likely rather to result in in- 

 grafting an imitative humanity on a totally different kind of capacity. 

 On the other hand, in his experiments on ants. Sir John Lubbock has 

 gone on the sounder principle of setting the ants problems to solve 

 for themselves — a principle which has resulted in showing that different 

 races of ants have very different resources, and that different individ- 

 uals, even in the same race, show a very different amount of resource 

 in dealing with the same difficulty. This is confirmed by what we 

 know of our more intimate friends among the domestic animals ; and 

 surely we should do more to develop their capacity by stimulating 

 them to meet difficulties by their own resources than we can effect by 

 taking their training so completely under our own care. Is it not 

 possible that, as things go, the companionship of man is rather an in- 

 cubus on the natural genius of the inferior animals than a help to its 

 development ? It is clear that the ants, at least, are more sagacious 

 in proportion as they live more apart from man, and are thrown upon 

 their own resources. The harvesting-ants of Texas and the leaf-cut- 

 ting and military ants of Nicaragua are far higher in civilization than 

 the ants of the more densely peopled countries of Europe. In propor- 

 tion as they have a freer scope for their efforts, their social communi- 

 ties appear to be founded on a more advanced intelligence and organi- 

 zation. Is it not possible that we stunt the intelligence of our humbler 

 fellow-creatures by doing so much for them, and permitting them to 

 do so little for themselves ? 



Certainly there is far too little disposition to allow of eccentricity 

 in the lower animals and for what comes of eccentricity. Half -domes- 

 ticated birds, however, will occasionally show very remarkable eccen- 

 tricities, and even appear to be making experiments — though experi- 

 ments which we should, of course, regard as of a very unscientific kind 

 — in the modification of their own instincts. The present writer knows 



