The Strange Instincts of Cattle,. 345 



one of the cows that had got wedged between two 

 rocks and was struggling with distressed bellowings 

 to free itself why did they not attack the prisoning 

 rocks instead of goring their unfortunate comrade to 

 death ? For it is well known that animals will, on 

 occasions, turn angrily upon and attack inanimate 

 objects that cause them injury or hinder their freedom 

 of action. And we know that this mythic faculty the 

 mind's projection of itself into visible nature sur- 

 vives in ourselves, that there are exceptional moments 

 in our lives when it comes back to us ; no one, for 

 instance, would be astonished to hear that any man, 

 even a philosopher, had angrily kicked away or 

 imprecated a stool or other inanimate object against 

 which he had accidentally barked his shins. The 

 answer is, that there is no connection between these 

 two things the universal mythic faculty of the 

 mind, and that bold and violent instinct of social 

 animals of rushing to the rescue of a stricken or 

 distressed companion, which has a definite, a narrow, 

 purpose namely, to fall upon an enemy endowed 

 not merely with the life and intelligence common to 

 all things, including rocks, trees, and waters, but 

 with animal form and motion. 



I had intended in this place to give other in- 

 stances, observed in several widely-separated species, 

 including monkeys ; but it is not necessary, as I 

 consider that all the facts, however varied, are 

 covered by the theory I have suggested even a fact 

 like the one mentioned in this chapter of cattle 

 bellowing and madly digging up the ground where 

 the blood of one of their kind had been spilt : 

 also such a fact as that of wild cattle and other 



