VI 



THE ANIMAL MIND 



"TITTHEN I try to picture to myself the difference 

 f ? between the animal mind and the human 

 mind, I seem to see the animal mind as limited by 

 the organization and the physical needs of its pos- 

 sessor in a sense that the mind of man is not; its 

 mental faculties, if we may call them such, are like 

 its tools and weapons, a part of its physical make-up, 

 and are almost entirely automatic in their action. 

 Almost, I say; but, in the case of the higher animals, 

 not entirely so. In the anthropoid apes, in the dog, 

 in the elephant, and maybe occasionally in some 

 others, there do seem to be at times the rudiments 

 of free intelligence, something like mind emanci- 

 pated from the bondage of organization and in- 

 herited habit. 



When an animal acts in obedience to its purely 

 physical needs and according to its anatomical struc- 

 ture, as when ducks take to the water, or hens 

 scratch, or hogs root, or woodpeckers drill, we do 

 not credit it with powers of thought. These and 

 similar things animals do instinctively. When the 

 wood-mice got into my cabin the other day and 

 113 



