1875.] Animal Depravity. 419 
This is a capital case. ‘ Instinét” might undeniably 
have led the terrier to attack the cat and attempt to deprive 
her of her booty. But we find this natural impulse here 
completely restrained for the attainment of a definite end. 
The terrier must have drawn the conclusion that his enemy, 
if detected in theft, would probably suffer severe punishment, 
—perhaps even death—and he therefore laid an information 
against her, calculating thus to get rid of her without com- 
promising himself. This incident plainly proves that brutes 
are capable of self-control—that they do not always blindly 
and necessarily follow their physical appetites, but can, like 
man, forego a present indulgence for what appears to them 
a greater good in prospect. It is as clear a case of self- 
determination,—of appetite and passion governed by the 
will,—as any which human biography can show. 
It will possibly be objected that we give no instance of 
self-control except in species which have been brought 
under human influence. The reply is obvious; if a free will 
or a power of self-determination has been created in such 
animals by man’s intervention, its presence or absence is 
obviously a matter of small moment and quite inadequate to 
establish a “‘ great gulf”? between man and “brute.” But 
if the will has not been thus created, it is probable, or rather 
certain, that were man better acquainted with the habits of 
wild animals he would find in their conduct also cases of 
self-control. 
It will further be objected that in the vast majority of 
cases, animals merely a¢t in accordance with the dictates of 
their ruling propensities. We grant this, and we ask whether 
this does not hold good to an almost equal extent with 
man? Analyse the actions of N’Kygntzgm, the blue-nosed 
baboon, and you will admittedly find little save the mani- 
festations of ruling propensity. Sift in like manner the 
conduct of John Nokes, collier, of Hanley, and you will 
come to the same result. Surely, then, we can regard it as 
proven that in the matter of self-determination, in the 
supremacy of will over propensity, there is no difference of 
kind between man and brute. 
Were animals really what vulgar human opinion supposes 
—did they simply and in all cases follow their propensities 
in the machine-like manner so commonly attributed to them, 
it is difficult to see how any individuality of character could 
exist. All the members of one species would have the same 
mental abilities and the same dispositions. But this 
is precisely what is not the case. Among a dozen 
animals of the same species and even of the same breed 
