148 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. 



the mental picture of this outside enemy, that the animal 

 will for a long time suffer the immediate pain and terror at 

 the teeth and claws of the ferret before venturing to expose 

 itself to the more remote but still more deadly pain which it 

 fears at the hands of the man. 



Coming now to Imagination of the third degree, or that 

 which implies the power of forming ideas independently of 

 any obvious suggestions from without, we have first to con- 

 sider how this kind of imagination, even if present in animals, 

 could be expressed. Now, apart from articulate expression 

 or intelligent gesture, it is evident that the objective indices 

 of imagination in this degree are so limited in number as to 

 be well-nigh absent. Even, therefore, if we assume such 

 imagination as present in any given animal, we might find it 

 difficult to suggest the kind of action to which it might give 

 rise, and which might be taken as unequivocal proof of such 

 faculty. What we require, it will be observed, is some class 

 or classes of actions which must be due to imagination of 

 this degree and can be due to nothing else. I only know of 

 three such classes, which, however, are conclusive as establish- 

 ing the fact of such imagination being present in the animals 

 which display them. It is almost needless to add that 

 imagination, even of this level of development, may well 

 be present among animals lower in the scale, which yet is not 

 apparent on account of being developed in lines which do 

 not express themselves in either of the three classes of 

 actions on which I rely in the case of the higher animals. 



The first of these actions is Dreaming. This, wherever it 

 is found to occur, constitutes certain proof of imagination 

 belonging to what I have called the third degree. 



The fact that Dogs dream is proverbial, and was long ago 

 remarked by Seneca and Lucretius. According to Dr. Lauder 

 Lindsay the Horse also dreams, as shown by its " shuddering, 

 shivering, quivering, quaking, or trembling. These phe- 

 nomena are concomitants or results in the waking state of 

 excitement, fear, ardour, impetuosity, or impatience. Hence 

 it is quite legitimately inferred by Montaigne and others that 

 the same feelings or mental conditions are developed during 

 sleep and dreaming, and are likely to be associated in the 

 racehorse with imaginary races, as in the sporting dog with 

 imaginary coursing."* 



* Mind in the Lower Animals, vol. ii, pp. 95-6. 



