ACTIONS OF ANIMALS EXPLAINED 



would be associated with conscious fear, sorrow, 

 shame, etc. But, except in the human mind 

 (which is controlled in almost every detail by con- 

 sciousness), there is no necessary connection be- 

 tween any mental gift or emotion and the con- 

 scious knowledge of it. 



Every injury to the body of an animal leaves 

 its imprint on the nerve-center, and in the case /, ' 



* -tir Ca*-tyct 



of so severe an experience as a whipping is to 

 dog the imprint lasts so clearly that ever after- 

 wards the sight of the whip completes an auto- 



iii ,1 c 



matic nervous connection which brings the am-^ , 

 mal's natural instinct to avoid injury to his body , 

 into full activity. 



What we regard as his " expressions " of fear 

 the dropped ears and tail, the crouching atti- 

 tude, the backward glance are all the natural 

 actions of an animal preparing to evade or dis- 

 suade attack. Because, in like circumstances, we 

 might know that we should be suffering from the 

 consciousness of fear affords no reason for credit- 

 ing the dog with similar knowledge. If any kind 

 of animal in a wild state did not always instinc- 

 tively prepare to evade the repetition of an in- '/> 

 jurious experience, it would become extinct; "and 

 what we regard as painful signs of fear in our* 

 domesticated animals are only facsimiles of the ** 

 instinctive means whereby their wild ancestors sur- 

 [57] 



