230 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



as fire is an important, indispensable antecedent con- 

 dition to enable the genius of a distinguished chef to 

 furnish forth an artistic dinner. " That is to say," he 

 continues,* "the logic of recepts, even in brutes, is 

 sufficient to enable the mind to establish true analogies 

 between its own states (although these are not yet the 

 objects of separate attention, or of what may be termed 

 subjective knowledge), and the corresponding states of 

 other minds." This sentence, in spite of the words in 

 the parenthesis, is a most misleading one. We might 

 with as much justice and propriety represent a match 

 coated with a certain phosphoric compound, as capable of 

 establishing "a true analogy between its own " dynamic 

 state and the dynamic state of a lighted candle! He 

 goes on, " I take it to be a matter of general observation 

 that animals habitually and accurately interpret the 

 mental states of other animals, while they also well 

 know that other animals are able similarly to interpret 

 theirs — as is best proved by their practising the arts of 

 cunning, concealment, hypocrisy, etc." We take it for 

 granted that the " general observation " of a multitude 

 of persons interested in animals, but not experts in the 

 study of their own mental processes, does often lead 

 them to form such mistaken inferences. But they are 

 inferences which the facts do not suffice to prove, and 

 which, if true, would overthrow the infinitely wider basis 

 of experiment and observation which has convinced 

 serious thinkers since Aristotle, that animals are not 

 rational. That they act in many respects so as to lead 

 the careless or prejudiced observer to think they really 



* p. 198. 



