Mental Processes in Animals. 335 



the matter, she would, no doubt, have expected her calf to 

 be composed of condensed milk. But failing that, why 

 not hay ? She had presumably some little experience of 

 putting hay inside. Why not find hay inside ; and, finding 

 hay, why not enjoy the good provender thus provided ? 

 But clearly we must not expect the brutes to possess know- 

 ledge to which they cannot attain about matters which in 

 no wise concern their daily life. 



"In our estimates of the characters of animals," con- 

 tinues Mr. Hamerton, in his comments on this anecdote, 

 " we always commit one of two mistakes either we con- 

 clude that the beasts have great knowledge because they 

 are so clever, or else we fancy that they must be stupid 

 because they are so ignorant." " The main difficulty in 

 conceiving the mental states of animals," says the same 

 observer, "is that the moment we think of them as human, 

 we are lost." Yes, but the pity of it is that we cannot 

 think of them in any other terms than those of human 

 consciousness. The only world of constructs that we 

 know is the world constructed by man. 



" To Newton and to Newton's dog, Diamond," said 

 Carlyle, " what a different pair of universes ! while the 

 painting in the optical retina of both was most likely the 

 same." Different, indeed; if we can be permitted, without 

 extravagance, to speak of the universe as existing at all for 

 Diamond, or allowed, except in hyperbole, to set side by 

 side a conception of ultimate generality, like the universe, 

 the summation of all conceptions, and " the painting in 

 the optical retina." Carlyle's meaning is, however, clear 

 enough. Given two different minds and the same facts, 

 how different are the products ! In the construct formed 

 on sight of the simplest object, we give far more than we 

 receive ; and what we give is a special resultant of 

 inheritance and individual acquisition. No two of us give 

 quite the same in amount or in quality. It is not too 

 much to say that for no two human beings is the world we 

 live in quite the same. And if this be so of human-folk, 

 how different must be the world of man from the world 



