The Strange Instincts of Cattle. 345 7 
one of the cows that had got wedged between two 
rocks and was struggling with distressed bellowings 
to free itself—why did they not attack the prisoning 
rocks instead of goring their unfortunate comrade to 
death? For it is well known that animals will, on 
occasions, turn angrily upon and attack inanimate 
objects that cause them injury or hinder their freedom 
ofaction. And we know that this mythic faculty—the 
mind’s projection of itself into visible nature—sur- 
vives in ourselves, that there are exceptional moments 
in our lives when it comes back to us; no one, for 
instance, would be astonished to hear that any man, 
even a philosopher, had angrily kicked away or 
imprecated a stool or other inanimate object against 
which he had accidentally barked his shins. The 
answer is, that there is no connection between these 
two things—the universal mythic faculty of the 
mind, and that bold and violent instinct of social 
animals of rushing to the rescue of a stricken or 
distressed companion, which has a definite, a narrow, 
purpose—namely, to fall upon an enemy endowed 
not merely with the life and intelligence common to 
all things, including rocks, trees, and waters, but 
with animal form and motion. 
IT had intended in this place to give other in- 
stances, observed in several widely-separated species, 
including monkeys ; but it is not necessary, as I 
consider that all the facts, however varied, are 
covered by the theory I have suggested—even a fact 
like the one mentioned in this chapter of cattle 
bellowing and madly digging up the ground where 
the blood of one of their kind had been spilt : 
also such a fact as that of wild cattle and other 
