274 MODERN TRAINING. 



knowledge, Herbert Spencer, in the Principles of Psychology, 

 concisely refers to it as follows: " Knowledge implies some- 

 thing known and something which knows'." With respect 

 to reasoning, he states it to be "the indirect establishment 

 of a relation between two things." Now, it is worthy of 

 remark that there are widely different grades of reasoning, 

 some being very simple, others extremely complex. The 

 ability to recall a mental picture of an object which was pre- 

 viously known by perception is called a representation. Be- 

 yond a few representations and their likenesses and unlike- 

 nesses some minds cannot go; others can grasp vast groups 

 of abstractions, and abstractions of abstractions, with ease. 

 Undoubtedly one cause which largely contributed to the 

 mental degradation of the dog from his true position in the 

 estimation of mankind is the fact that he can have no 

 knowledge unless his cognitions have been derived from 

 direct experience, although some of the lower races of man- 

 kind have not much higher faculties. To illustrate, a man 

 who has a knowledge of language, can gain a mediate 

 knowledge of a certain object or idea by a description of 

 it; but a succession of mental objects and attributes cannot 

 be brought into a dog's mind by language except in the 

 simplest forms of representation. The order Find causes 

 the dog to hunt diligently for a dead bird, there then being 

 undoubtedly a comprehension of the meaning of the word, 

 learned from many experiences; but by having direct expe- 

 rience, the dog has a respectable scope of intelligence and 

 perception of cause and effect. To be more particular, it 

 may be illustrated by supposing an instance: By describing 

 a gun and its uses to man, through the medium of language, 

 a very good comprehension of it can be given the dog 

 cannot have such mediate knowledge; only by direct observ- 

 ation in practice can he learn its uses. The fact that the 

 dog could not acquire knowledge by any mediate means 



