Nov. 11, 18S1.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



29 



" Here," proceeds Darwin, " we kave reasoning, though not 

 quite perfect, for the retriever miglit ha\e brought the 

 wounded bird first, and then returned for the dead one, as 

 in the case of the two wild ducks." If the dog had followed 

 the wiser course, it would not have been quite so clear as 

 in the actual case that he had reasoned, though the pause 

 for consideration after an attempt to take both together, 

 would have gone far to suggest that explanation. But the 

 action of the dog in killing the bird seems quite decisive, 

 because such an act was entirely opposed to the instincts 

 of the breed and to the training which retrievers receive. 



To these cases Darwin adds the statement that "the 

 mulateers in South America say, ' I will not give you the 

 mule whose step is easiest,' but la mas racional — the one 

 that reasons best " ; on which Humboldt has remarked, 

 " this popular expression, dictated by long experience, com- 

 bats the system of animated machines better, perhaps, than 

 all the arguments of speculative philosophy." Here, 

 although Danvin only quotes Humlioldt, he manifestly ex- 

 presses his own view, and we find him opposed in a very 

 definite manner to the theory of Kepler, afterwards sup- 

 ported by Descartes, and recently advocated by Huxley 

 and othei-s, that animals are automata, not possessing con- 

 sciousness (or at anyrate that this theory is admissible). 



The next case to be considered is one which was described 

 a year or two since in Nature. It was not one which in 

 reality demonstrated, or even strongly suggested, the 

 exercise of reasoning faculties by animals. We quote it, 

 however, because it illustrates well the mistakes into which 

 want of care may lead the student of our subject. During 

 the cold weather of last January, the writer of the letter 

 in question put bread on the window-sills of his drawing- 

 room for the benefit of the birds. These, finding food 

 there, were constantly fluttering about the windows. " One 

 day a large water-rat was seen on the window-sill, helping 

 himself to the bread. In order to reach the window he 

 had to climb to a height of about 1 3 ft. ; this he did by the 

 help of a shrub trained against the wall. Neither instinct 

 nor experience," proceeds the correspondent of Nature, 

 " will easily account for his conduct, since he never found 

 food there before. If neither experience nor instinct, what, 

 save reason, led him % His action seems to have been the 

 result of no small observation and reasoning. He seems to 

 have said to himself : I observe the birds are thronging the 

 ^^"indow all day ; they would not be there for naught ; it may 

 be they find there something to eat ; if so, perhaps I, too, 

 might find there something I should like. I shall try." The 

 way in which this story is told singularly illustrates the 

 difi^iculty which we, as speaking animals, find in under- 

 standing how a process of reasoning can be carried on 

 without the imagined use of words. Probably few men 

 whose mental powers have been well trained carry on a pro- 

 cess of pure ratiocination, without clothing with words the 

 thoughts successively suggested to their minds. It almost 

 seems to a mind thus accustomed to reason with a verbal 

 accompaniment (audible to the mind's ear only) that any 

 mental process not thus accompanied must be to some 

 degree instinctive, and any actions resulting from such a 

 process automatic. But it is certain that even the most 

 intellectual sometimes act in a manner which, if noticed in 

 an animal, would suggest the exercise of reasoning power, 

 not only without putting their thoughts into mental lan- 

 guage, but without, in reality, noting what they are doing. 

 However, the point to be specially noticed about the above 

 story is that the narrator overlooks the most oln-ious, and 

 probably the true, explanation of the rat's behaviour. The 

 rat could not see the food, but most probably he could 

 smell it. If so, his adventuring up the wall to get it was 

 not the result of reasoning, or, at least, not necessarily so. 



for that was the shortest path to the much-needed food. 

 Possibly the birds themselves may have been an attraction 

 to him. Certainly the case is not one which compels us to 

 believe that water-rats reason. 



This objection was so well urged, in company with other 

 points necessary to be considered in such inquiries, by a 

 German writer, Ilerr II. T. Finck, that we quote his re- 

 marks almost in full. " Before we ascribe to a rat such 

 complicated reasoning powers," Herr Finck remarks, " it is 

 necessary to ask if there is no other simpler way of 

 accounting for the phenomena. I think there is. It is 

 well-known that difierent species of animals vary greatly 

 in the acuteness of their senses. To man, sight is the 

 most important sense, and the same is true of many other 

 animals and most bii-ds. The cat is a representative of 

 another smaller class of animals, whose most perfect organ 

 of sense is the ear ; while the dog lives in a field of sensa- 

 tives, the most important of which are contributed by the 

 sense of smell." This point, as dogs afibrd many of the 

 most striking illustrations of reasoning, or of what looks 

 like reasoning, in animals, must be carefully remembered. 

 Few are aware, we believe, how imperfect a sense is sight 

 with all dogs, as compared with our own sense of sight. 

 We believe that there could not be cited a single instance 

 tending to sliow that a dog has been able to see as well as 

 a very short-sighted man would, while in the great majority 

 of cases, it can be shown by a few easily-tried experiments 

 that dogs scarcely see at all in the true sense of the word. 

 Our sense of smell is probably not more completely 

 inferior to the same sense with dogs, than is their sense of 

 sight to ours. To return, however, to Herr Finck. After 

 pointing out that the rat belongs to the class of animals 

 who are guided by the sense of smell, he says, " It is 

 evident, therefore, that the water-rat in question was led 

 to the window-sill by his nose, which in his case was a 

 more trustworthy guide than his eyes would have been. 

 I do not wish to deny, by any means, that animals 

 have reasoning powers. On the contrary, I am con- 

 vinced that human and brute intellect difter only in 

 degree, not in kind. But what we have to guard against 

 is not to ascribe [he obviously means the reverse, that we 

 are to guard against ascriViing] to animals reasoning 

 powers of a higher type than is consistent with the 

 development of their brain, especially when the actions 

 which seem to postulate such powers can be readily 

 accounted for by simply bearing in mind the extraordinary 

 acuteness of one or more of their senses. We are alto- 

 gether too prone to judge the intellectual life of animals by 

 the human standard — to imagine that the eye is every- 

 where, as with us, the leading source of knowledge. The 

 neglect of the important rvle which the sense of smeU 

 plays in animal life has been particularly fruitful of errors 

 in philosophical speculation. It has, among othrr things, 

 helped to give a longer basis of life to the old theory of 

 instinct, regarded as a mysterious power of nature." In 

 passing, we may remark that at the very beginning of our 

 own life the sense of smell is stronger and more useful than 

 the sense of sight ; as though during those first few days, 

 before the eyes acquire power to recognise objects or to do 

 much more than to distinguish light from darkness, we 

 belonged for the time being to that inferior class of animals 

 with whom the predominant sense is that of smell. In 

 that part, also, of their Uves, human beings seem so far to 

 resemble the lower animals that their actions appear to be 

 governed by instinct solely. In reality, probably, a sense of 

 smell much keener then than during the subsequent years 

 which alone we can remember, governs the actions in the 

 same way, though not so obviously, as sight governs them 

 in most of the actions of later years. 



