1895.] ESSAYS. 119 



Our great tendeficy is to road into the minds of animals and test 

 them by our own minds. And this is even so when it comes to scien- 

 tific men, — those who have made the subject a life-long study. There 

 are two great schools of naturalists, — those who believe in the intelli- 

 gence of animals and those who disbelieve. They are constantly and 

 continually charging each other with humanizing them on the one 

 hand and shutting it off on the other. We must have some test of 

 what we call animal intelligence, and without going into the thing from 

 a scientific standpoint I have fixed the test to be something like this : 

 When an animal forms within itself an immaterial representation of an 

 external fact and acts upon it, then I say thiat animal manifests intel- 

 ligence. 



As an illustration of this point, allow me to tell a story that I tliiiik 

 will thoroughly explain my definition. An P^nglish naturalist placed a 

 pike, one of the most stupid of fish, in a glass tank and separated him 

 from a number of other smaller fishes which, if at liberty, would have 

 furnished him with food. No sooner had lie been placed in the tank 

 than he made a dive for one of the smaller fishes, but only to be 

 nearly stunned by swimming with such force against the glass, which 

 he did not discern. This continued for nearly three mouths, but at 

 last the pike had learned caution and did not attempt to get at the 

 other fish. Even when the partition was taken away, the fish showed 

 no desire to attack what would naturally have been his prey. That 

 pike did not do as he wanted to, but checked his own ijatural action by 

 a mental picture of what he had undergone in the past. Whenever an 

 animal has mental representation rather than present desire, I call the 

 animal intelligent. 



It is hard to say where instinct leaves off and reason commences. 

 Instinct has certain marks and peculiarities, and it is pretty evenly 

 divided among animals of the same species. Intelligence on the other 

 hand varies considerably. Instinct is mechanical ; it works by a kind 

 of impulse for an end that the animal does not appear to foresee. 

 Reason is self-conscious. There is not the distinctness between the two 

 that we used to think. Instinct always has in it a little dose of reason. 

 Instinct is not blind, neither is it invariable. There is an abundance 

 of evidence to show that surroundings have much to do with instinct. 



I have in a ragged sort of way said that you cannot separate in- 

 stinct from reason, and between them there is a constant interplay. 

 They are so closely connected that they breed together and the off- 

 spring is what we call common-sense. 



