OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 85 



future object, and therefore their modes of operation are never altered 

 or improved. They cannot even anticipate the future, or foresee 

 future wants; for this can be done only through a generalization of 

 past experience. 



This theory explains at once the most striking deficiency of the 

 lower animals, — their incapacity of using language. As they have 

 only Intuitions, the only words which they can apply or understand 

 are Proper Names, — the appellations of this or that particular thing. 

 These they can understand. A dog can easily be taught to recognize 

 the name of his master, even when pronounced by another person. 

 They can even be taught to recognize the names of particular places 

 and buildings, so that they will understand and obey when they are 

 told to go to the ham, the river, the field, or the house* But it is 

 always the particular ham, or other object, with which they have been 

 taught to associate this sound or significant gesture as its Proper Name. 

 Carry the animal to a distant place, near which may be a set of cor- 

 responding objects, and then tell him to go to the ham or the river, 

 and he will not understand the order as applying to the new set of 

 objects, but will set off immediately for the old building or place with 

 whose Proper Name alone he is familiar. In like manner, they can 

 be taught by a particular word, or gesture, to repeat a certain move- 

 ment, or perform a particular act, as when ordered to bark, to lie down, 

 to watch, or to go out ; by frequent repetition, the sound of this par- 

 ticular word has become to them the Proper Name of this particular 

 act, the union of the two being a simple association, like that which 

 connects a rod with the idea of a whipping. But of course, with Proper 

 Names only, we could not frame a sentence or express any connected 

 meaning. Words, properly so called, are general names, expressive of 

 Thoughts, or whole classes of things ; and brutes have no Thoughts to 

 express, this being the peculiar attribute of Reason. 



Now, as Intuitions alone will not enable animals either to foresee 

 future emergencies, or to combine means so as to provide for them, 

 there must be some provision to remedy this deficiency, or the different 



* In Mr. Lockhart's amusing account of Sir "Walter Scott's first favorite dog, 

 Camp, he says : " As the servant was laying the cloth for dinner, he would address 

 the dog lying on his mat by the fire, and say, ' Camp, my good fellow, the Sheriff's 

 coming home by the ford, — or by the hill,' and the sick animal would immediately 

 bestir himself to welcome his master, going out at the back door or the front door, 

 according to the dii-ection given, and advancing as far as he was able." 



