78 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



round on a drawing-room hearthrug before lying down, 

 just as if it were in its ancestral home in the green- 

 wood, the herbs of which needed thus treading down 

 and pressing round, to make a comfortable bed. 



Very funny is the tale cited * from Miss Bramston 

 about a certain archiepiscopal collie-dog, which had 

 acquired a habit of hunting imaginary pigs every even- 

 ing directly after family prayers. Mr. Romanes makes 

 much of this, but really nothing could well be more 

 simple or natural than the association of feelings and 

 imaginations thereby implied. Indeed, the case may well 

 be cited as a type of others, the explanation of which 

 may seem, from a less complete knowledge of the cir- 

 cumstances, to present some difficulty. In this instance 

 we are told that the collie had been formerly accus- 

 tomed " to be sent to chase real pigs out of a field ; " 

 and, of course, the sound of the word " pigs," and the 

 pleasurable action of running about after them, became 

 associated in its imagination. We are then told, " It 

 became a custom for Miss Benson to open the door for 

 the collie after dinner in the evening, and say, * Pigs ! ' " 

 when he very naturally ran out, and ran about according 

 to his previously-acquired habit. Soon this exercise 

 became in its turn a matter of habit, and the phenomena 

 attending the termination of dinner and of family 

 prayers very naturally gave rise in the collie to an ex- 

 pectant feeling t of the door being opened for the 

 accustomed pleasurable excitement. If the door was 

 not opened, the habit being now well-established, the 

 expectant feeling, always growing more and more vivid, 

 * p. 56. t See " On Truth," p. 195. 



