UNTAUGHT WISDOM 



THOSE who have read some of the things I 

 have published in which I have discredited 

 the reasoning power of the lower animals write me 

 stories of the wonderful intelligence of then- cat or 

 their dog or their horse or their canary, and seem to 

 fancy I am or should be silenced. Now I admit that 

 the dog often does things that seem to transcend 

 instinct, but I admit it reluctantly, and ease the 

 admission by the word " seems." I am not certain 

 but that instinct, modified and trained by hundreds 

 of thousands of years of close companionship with 

 man, is adequate to account for all he does. I am 

 not certain that after all these ages of human asso- 

 ciation his mind is developed beyond that of his 

 brother the wolf. He is gentler, more confiding, 

 and more adaptive, but his cunning and his prowess 

 are less, and I doubt if he is any more of a rational 

 being. Domestication improves the wild animals, 

 not by developing their intelligence, but by subdu- 

 ing their wildness and making them more submis- 

 sive to our wills. Like the wild grains and fruits, 

 the more able they are to serve us, the less able 

 are they to shift for themselves. Those persons who 

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