ANIMAL ARITHMETIC. 257 



a savage tliat they have four limbs. Foxes caught in trails will 

 use the most ingenious devices to extricate themselves, and will 

 even gnaw off one of their paws rather than be prisoners. This 

 requires an effort of the will contrary to the instincts, surpassing 

 the degree of moral energy of which most men are capable ; and, 

 further than this, the act demonstrates a power of applying means 

 to the end, which is an act of intelligence not less complicated 

 than the effort required for counting twenty on the fingers and 

 toes, as is the manner with most savages. 



The faculty of abstraction and generalization is developed 

 exclusively by the aid of descriptive and ideological language, 

 which classifies things and acts under different words or auditive 

 images. With inferior races this faculty is weaker in prof)ortion 

 as their language is less analytical and less rich in abstract terms. 

 It is impossible to excite it in an animal, because, in the absence 

 of a language common to man and him, he is destitute of every 

 means of acquiring it. There is really no bridge between animal 

 and human intelligence. While our language, being descriptive 

 and objective, associates a sound with each visual image, the lan- 

 guage of the animal only expresses emotions and passions. As a 

 rule, it is as untranslatable to us as our language is to them. It 

 is only when we try to paint, describe, relate, and express ideas, 

 that they can not understand us, for nothing is easier than to 

 cause them to share our emotions, tenderness, anger, or hatred. 

 They understand our mimicry better than we can understand 

 theirs, and by mimicry we can make them understand the causes 

 of our emotions of a certain kind. The only condition is, that we 

 be dealing with species of a social nature. 



When a hunting-dog sees his master with his gaiters, carrying 

 his game-bag and gun, he understands that he is to go with him. 

 He may even have acquired the habit of associating the recollec- 

 tion of a sound with these objects, and thus know the names by 

 which we designate them in the language which he hears us speak. 

 He may also be taught to fetch the gaiters, shoes, and game-bag 

 when told to do so. If, when he has brought one shoe, he is told 

 to fetch the other, he understands that there are two. To this 

 point he certainly has the notion of duality. He can not be igno- 

 rant, after he has executed this order several times, that the words 

 " the other " mean the second shoe. If, after having been trained 

 by an English master, he passes over to a Frenchman, he learns 

 that his order I'autre means the same thing. He takes no notice 

 of the difference in the sound of the words, because they are both 

 uttered with the same accentuation and intonation, and under the 

 impulse of the same feelings. To him human speech is a yelping, 

 which he interprets by the same rule as he does his own ejacula- 

 tions. 



VOL. xxxiy. — IV 



