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. 



