INTRODUCTORY. 



intellect, they do not possess one or more powers or 

 faculties which we do not, and which, therefore, we 

 cannot imagine or fully understand. Did they possess, 

 however, an intellectual nature, we are very confident 

 that they would very soon make us distinctly and un- 

 mistakably aware of the fact by external signs. 



(4) But animals do not make signs ; for a sign is a 

 token or device addressed to eye or ear, depicting, by 

 an external manifestation, some newly arising com- 

 bination of ideas. Such a manifestation must be made 

 with the intention of conveying to the understanding 

 of another, a knowledge of the combination of ideas 

 possessed by the mind of the sign-maker. Otherwise 

 it is not and cannot be a "sign." 



(5) The accounts we sometimes meet with of a quite 

 exceptional display by animals of psychical powers 

 which seem to be truly intellectual, must, then (occa- 

 sional mendacity apart), be due to one of three 

 causes : — 



{a) Errors of observation or mistaken inferences — and 

 the actions of animals are very easily misapprehended. 



ip) The possession by such animals of some power 

 or faculty which we have not, and therefore cannot 

 imagine. 



{c) The possession by animals of an intellectual 

 nature like our own (making them truly moral and 

 responsible beings), which nature they are hindered 

 from making manifest externally, owing to the absence 

 of some requisite physical conditions. This view, in- 

 stead of degrading man to the level commonly assigned 

 to brutes, raises them to the level of mankind. It is 



