A Limit to Evolution 311 



ire popularly used. In a sense, they have ' memories,' 



anticipations,' ' inferences,' a certain ' power of language,' etc. 



[n a way, they 'recognise' classes of objects, seek, follow up, 

 id rest in the pleasurable, and avoid the painful, and they 



ilso, in a sense, ' take means to attain desired ends.' What 

 the true nature of all these powers ? 

 Of course we cannot while remaining human beings per- 

 fectly and fully appreciate what the mental state of an 



Luimal may be. But we can go a long way towards so doing 



)ecause we are animals ourselves, and have animal as well as 

 ^rational faculties. Men and the higher animals have similar 

 sense-organs and similar feelings, imaginations, and emotions. 

 Evidently also a similar power exists in both, of associating 

 these feehngs in groups and groups of groups, and of co- 



)rdinating actions in response to such feelings.^ 



Now we do not for a moment hesitate to affirm that there 

 is no known action of any animal which cannot be fully 

 accounted for by the agency of those lower and merely sensi- 

 tive powers — including the co-ordinated actions by which the 

 pleasurable is adhered to and the painful avoided — which we 

 know "may act in animals without the co-operation of intellect, 

 because they do so act in ourselves. 



True 'intelligence,' therefore, is not (according to our 

 third rule) to be asserted of animals, because their actions 

 can be explained without it — can be explained by that mere 

 sensitivity which physiology shows us they possess and which 

 we possess. 



^ The late Professor Green has observed as follows : * We must remember 

 that there is no reason to suppose, because the burnt dog shuns the fire, that 

 he perceives any relation between it and the pain of being burnt. A sequence 

 of one feeling upon another is not a consciousness of relation between them, 

 much less of relation between facts which they represent. The dog's conduct 

 may be accounted for by the simple sequence of an imagination of pain upon 

 a visual sensation, resembling ones which actual pain has previously fol- 

 lowed. . . , Till dogs can talk, what data have we on which to found another 

 explanation ? ' 



