14 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 



which men are agreed, it is that its performances are 

 inexplicable, either to the individual himself or to 

 others, in at all events, the most remarkable cases. 

 Take as instances in very different lines of thought 

 Newton's perceptions of quantity and space relations, 

 and Mozart's of tone relations. These perceptions were 

 immediate, and surmounted all ordinary rules of mental 

 movement. But when a homing pigeon covers 500 

 miles in so short a time that the rate of speed rises to 

 40 or 50 miles an hour, showing how straight is the 

 path by which it reaches its home, we are ready to class 

 the performance as wonderful for a bird, but not on a 

 par with any feat of human genius. So far as I know, 

 no one has as yet explained such a performance. I 

 have studied this subject, and made some experi- 

 ments with homing pigeons, but whether we explain 

 the matter as the exercise of very accurate perceptions 

 of landmarks which is not an explanation without 

 great difficulties when long distances are involved or 

 whether we give up the problem and say we have no 

 experience which enables us to understand it the 

 result is still marvellous, and is closer to the per- 

 formance, of genius than anything else to which it can 

 be compared. It is to be remembered, too, that we may 

 find even in imbeciles or idiots certain psychic capa- 

 bilities as, e.g. for music, developed to an amazing extent, 

 so that the generally low intelligence of a pigeon is not 

 to be set up as a plea of belittlement of its homing 

 performance. 



Therefore, while man is a law unto himself, and to a 

 certain extent a law to all other creatures, while he 

 must look within to understand himself and use intro- 

 spection in attempting to get at the nature of the 

 psychic life of the lower animals, he must also recognise 

 the limitations of this final method, and realise that he 

 may stumble on problems regarding both himself (in 



