346 Life and Immortality. 



while he was given the command to eat, but, like the cul- 

 tured creature he was, everything was done orderly and 

 decently. Almost any animal can be thus trained to subject 

 its natural instincts to its reason. 



Fishes are not known to possess much reason. There is 

 not an angler, nevertheless, that will not tell you that he has 

 had the powers of his mind taxed to the utmost in his 

 efforts to induce an old and wary trout to take the bait, and 

 even when he has succeeded in hooking him, it has greatly 

 tried his genius for planning to prevent the fish from break- 

 ing his line. Natural instinct teaches a fish to fly from man, 

 and even one's shadow on the water will frighten away the 

 fish and destroy an angler's hopes of success. Yet we have 

 seen a pond full of gold-fish which were quite tame, and 

 which, when they saw a human being at the side of the pond, 

 would come forward instead of showing alarm. They were 

 so perfectly confiding that they would take a piece of bread 

 or biscuit out of his hand. Here, then, is an example of the 

 instinct, which urges them to flee from man, being overcome 

 by the reason, which tells them to approach him. 



Animals of burden may often be seen attending to pre- 

 scribed work without any supervision. Dray-horses, as is 

 well known, sometimes take pleasure in their work. I knew 

 of a horse of the kind that was as much interested, appar- 

 ently, in his work as his owner. He never had to be told 

 when to move, for all the while the dray was loading he was 

 observant of everything, and, knowing the capacity thereof, 

 was ready when the look from the master told him to pro- 

 ceed. Horses have sometimes shown a knowledge of the 

 amount of work they are supposed to perform in a day. A 

 case has been cited of a horse by Mr. Wood that was 

 capable of doing his work without a driver. He belonged 

 to the owner of an American mine. As soon as his cart 

 was filled with ore, at a given signal he went off to the 

 spot where the ore was to be dumped, waited until the cart 

 was unloaded, and then returned for another load. So many 



