ANIMAL ARITHMETIC. 



= 53 



perspective. But in all his comparisons of present and past sen- 

 sations, definite notions of number rarely have any part. 



The inequalities in the development of the power of counting 

 and of arithmetical notions among the different human races 

 should make us cautious about accepting the accounts of those 

 who believe that some animals can be taught to count. It is ex- 

 tremely improbable, at least, that animals, however intelligent, 

 without language, should acquire precise ideas which human 

 beings succeed in apprehending only by the aid of language and 

 education. 



The animal can distinguish relative sizes, but the measure of 

 quantities escapes him. Like the child and savage of inferior 

 development, he can only distinguish between few and many, 

 between unity, duality, and plurality, the various degrees of 

 which must inevitably be more or less confused in his percep- 

 tions. He knows facts, but he distinguishes them chiefly by their 

 order of coexistence in space, rather than of succession in time ; 

 and they are photographed in his brain in views of the whole, of 

 which, not being able to separate them from the others, he can 

 not distinguish the similar parts enough to count them. His 

 recollection of places is a succession of kaleidoscopic pictures, in 

 which, among the moving forms and successive sounds, he marks 

 only what moves him, what gives him pleasure or pain, what 

 flatters his instincts or answers to his wants, what arouses fear 

 or desire in him. If he should go so far as to count, it would 

 be only those objects which interest him with a view to his 

 security. 



The wolf and the fox, for instance, can distinguish whether a 

 flock is guarded by one or two dogs, but can not tell any better 

 than we can how many sheep there are in the flock ; but if they 

 see one or two separated from the rest, they will attack them. In 

 the same way we can distinguish the forms of two, three, or four 

 poplars on the bank of a stream, while we can not tell the number 

 of trees in an avenue, but are always inclined to exaggerate it. 



It is by this observation of lines, directions, and signs in the 

 whole, rather than of numbers, that the animal acquires the 

 faculty of recognizing roads it has passed over, and places where 

 it has met its prey or escaped its enemies. It can orient itself to 

 the horizon and measure distances, as the savage does ; and, like 

 him, it has the sense of the direction it ought to take to reach the 

 object it is in search of ; but it is reasonably certain that no cal- 

 culation of any number of units enters into this intelligence. 

 When a dog in hunting crosses a wood or a fallow ground, he is 

 able, by a quick apperception, to describe all the curves and all the 

 angles that permit him to avoid or turn the obstacles. He can 

 adjust his leap to the width of the ditch which he has to jump. 



