ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 267 



learned by experience, that winter followed the sum- 

 mer, and that the preservation of their lives required 

 the accumulation of a surplus of food? The posses- 

 sion of a thinking principle renders all of these acts 

 perfectly intelligible as w^ell as simple; and without 

 it they are wholly incapable of a rational expla- 

 nation. 



The beaver, in a comparative estimate, is a low ani- 

 mal in his structural organization, as has been shown. 

 He lives upon the coarsest food, is slow of motion 

 upon land, of low respiration, monotrematous, and 

 aquatic. His vision is short in range, and his brain 

 is without those convolutions which are regarded as 

 indications of mental power. In the great catalogue 

 of animals, which is constructed upon the basis of 

 anatomical structure, he rises no higher than the rat, 

 the porcupine, or the squirrel. There is no reason for 

 supposing that he is more intelligent than any other 

 rodent of a corresponding grade. And yet by his 

 sagacity, his industry, and his artificial erections, he 

 has raised himself to a very respectable position, in 

 human estimation, for intelligence and architectural 

 capacity. It is because he needs these erections to 

 promote his comfort and safety that man is able to 

 follow the evidences of his skill and intelligence, and 

 to become satisfied of their extraordinary character. 

 If then an animal, with such an inferior organization, 

 manifests so large an amount of mental capacity, of 

 how much more must those be capable whose organ- 

 ization is found to be so much superior! 



There is no doubt that the highest forms of intel- 

 ligence among the mutes are to be found in the car- 

 nivorous animals. As an order they live pre-eminently 



