INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS, 



JN discussing the intelligence of animals I 

 am aware that many persons, at the outset, 

 would question the propriety of the term. Man 

 has so long arrogated the exclusive possession 

 of mind, or at least of a mind capable of rational 

 reflection, that he is reluctant to concede the 

 fact of its possession by the lower orders of 

 animate life. Those acts which, in the brute 

 creation, seem to proceed from the action of 

 powers analagous to human intelligence, it has 

 been usual to ascribe to an irrational faculty 

 called instinct ; a power invariable and despotic 

 in its action, but in no degree the result of re- 

 flection ; some metaphysicians even going so far 

 as to assert that the action of animals is purely 

 automatic, the difference in this respect between 

 them and -the automaton moved by wires and 

 springs being that the former possesses a con- 



