46 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



uot necessary for us to decide ; but it is important to 

 notice that among animals it never approaches a 

 point where any clear ideas are conveyed by it. My 

 dog and I are walking side by side when certain 

 sounds cause us both to turn around. We both see 

 the same object; probably it makes much the same 

 sense impression on us both, so that we have a sim- 

 ilar perception. But I at once name the object, an 

 angry dog; and now I stand alone, for my dog can- 

 not follow me in this realm. But does not my dog 

 recognize a difference between dogs and cats, and 

 does he not see that an angry dog belongs to a differ- 

 ent class from a friendly one? I judge so from his 

 acts, for he chases the object if it is a cat, makes 

 friends with it if it is a friendly dog, and runs away 

 from it if it be an angry dog larger than himself. 

 Undoubtedly, the dog has a vague, indefinite idea 

 which corresponds in a measure to the concepts 

 which I can name, but which he cannot. Now, when 

 we look closely at the so-called language of animals 

 it seems to be on a par with such crude ideas. When 

 a sentinel of a herd of antelopes gives a warning sig- 

 nal every individual in the herd is put on the alert. 

 The signal probably gave the herd no definite idea of 

 any particular danger, but simply a general recog- 

 nition of danger. A rooster who calls his flock to 

 share some newly discovered food, or a mother hen 

 calling her chicks to run to cover when she sees a 

 hawk, certainly conveys some general idea, and the 

 ideas seem to be midway between perceptions that 

 animals share with man and the named conceptions 

 that man forms alone. Without going further into 

 this matter, we may say that among the higher ani- 

 mals we can certainly see the beginnings of language 



