OF WILD ANIMALS u 



real question is: how far does their intelligence carry them? 

 It is with puzzled surprise that we have noted the curious dili- 

 gence of the professors of animal psychology in always writing 

 of "animal behavior" and never of old-fashioned, common- 

 sense animal intelligence. Can it be possible that any one of 

 them really refuses to concede to the wild animal the pos- 

 session of a mind, and a working intelligence? 



Yes. Animals do reason. If any one truth has come out 

 of all the critical or uncritical study of the animal mind that 

 has been going on for two centuries, it is this. Animals do 

 reason; they always have reasoned, and as long as animals 

 live they never will cease to reason. 



The higher wild animals possess and display the same fun- 

 damental passions and emotions that animate the human race. 

 This fact is subject to intelligent analysis, discussion and de- 

 velopment, but it is not by any means a "question" subject 

 to debate. In the most intellectual of the quadrupeds, birds 

 and reptiles, the display of fear, courage, love, hate, pleasure, 

 displeasure, confidence, suspicion, jealousy, pity, greed and 

 generosity are so plainly evident that even children can and 

 do recognize them. To the serious and open-minded student 

 who devotes prolonged thought to these things, they bring the 

 wild animal very near to the "lord of creation." 



To the question, "Have wild animals souls?" we reply, 

 "That is a debatable question. Read; then think it over." 



Methods with the Animal Mind. In the study of ani- 

 mal minds, much depends upon the method employed. It 

 seems to me that the problem-box method of the investigators 

 of "animal behavior" leaves much to be desired. Certainly 

 it is not calculated to develop the mental status of animals 

 along lines of natural mental progression. To place a wild 

 creature in a great artificial contrivance, fitted with doors, 

 cords, levers, passages and what not, is enough to daze or 

 frighten any timid animal out of its normal state of mind and 

 nerves. 



