The Homing Instinct 179 



nor in our anxiety to explain the manner in which the 

 animals accomplish the results, need we pin them down 

 to our limited methods of understanding in any particular 

 direction. Rather let us learn from the animals, and see 

 if we cannot regain certain qualities of mind which we, 

 no doubt, originally had, but have now lost, and which 

 they retain. 



I gather, therefore, that the intense desire to reach a 

 given place impels the dog forward ; that as it yields to 

 this impulse, that a certain guiding sense, which is in itself 

 quite independent of any assistance from external pheno- 

 mena, comes to its aid, and the sense of direction is, in this 

 very sense — that the dog desires to be there, and follows 

 this desire, rather than troubling about the aspect of the 

 surroundings in getting there. The more it becomes accus- 

 tomed to throw all its effort into this intuitive prompting, 

 the more it discards any temporary assistance it may be 

 tempted to use, in the first place, such as noting turns 

 in the road, and other external aids, and also the more it 

 improves in its way-finding duties. The deduction, in fact, 

 seems to be plain, that the desire itself brings its own lesson, 

 and a world of intelligence is opened up to the dog, and 

 to all animals, under stress of this governing force, of which 

 we human beings are quite unconscious, because we have 

 not yet exercised this particular mental effort along the 

 same lines as the animals. 



It will therefore be seen, that those promptings which 

 have their origin in what we call instinct, are due to an 

 intelligence quite apart from, and infinitely above, any 

 guidance from the senses. While man accepts gratefully 

 the many wonderful inventions which have come to him, as 

 aids in his present manner of living, there is no doubt, that 

 in his increasing dependence on material contrivances, he 



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