ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE, AND HOW TO STUDY IT 13 
main stages of his psychic life very much more rapidly 
than the child; but apart from the use of language and 
the special peculiarities of the psychic activity dependent 
on this, there is a closer resemblance—at all events, if 
we restrict our comparisons to unlettered, and especially 
uncivilized men—than most persons would suspect, or, 
owing to prejudices, would be inclined to admit. Nor 
would I confine this statement to the dog, for a study 
of a kitten for 135 days, from birth onwards, was a 
revelation to myself, though I had been a steady ob- 
server of animals for a long period of years. The 
amazing persistence and intellectual resource shown by 
this kitten were such as to remind me of nothing more 
than the conduct of a child of unusual determination 
and intelligence—in fact, just the sort of child that I 
should expect to succeed in the world, no matter what 
the obstacles in its path. 
Nearly ten years ago, in a paper published in the 
Popular Science Monthly,* I made the statement that 
“Many of the performances of the lower animals, if 
accomplished by men, would be regarded as indications 
of the possession of marvellous genius,” and I see no 
reason now to change that opinion. 
That man can lay out the line of a railroad through 
the trackless forest, over lofty mountains and across 
deep valleys, is indeed evidence of wonderful mental 
achievement. But if the surveyor could dispense with 
all his instruments and mathematical calculations, and 
were in possession of some mental endowment by 
which he could straightway indicate the correct path, 
would his performance not be immeasurably more 
wonderful? And would we attempt to belittle it by 
assuming that it did not involve reasoning and the use 
of syllogisms. If genius has any one quality about 
* March 1887. 
