The Elephant 53 



nervous ; that is to say, their nerve centres the ganglia 

 in which energy is stored up are constitutionally in a 

 state of more or less unstable equilibrium, so that stimulus, 

 whether of external origin, or initiated centrically, is apt to 

 produce explosive effects. Courage depends upon physical 

 and mental constitution, upon specializations in race, train- 

 ing, and structure, upon differences in personal experience 

 and organization. 



So much as this may be said with confidence, but on 

 what grounds, biological or psychological, is it possible for 

 Professor Romanes to assert that the elephant seems 

 usually to be "actuated by the most magnanimous of 

 feelings"? Magnanimity belongs to the rarest and loftiest 

 type of human character : how did an elephant come by 

 it ? The obligations of mental and moral congruity are 

 not less binding than those of physical fitness. No one 

 nowadays draws an elephant with a human head ; but a 

 beast with self-respect, courage, refinement, sympathy, 

 and charity enough to be magnanimous, does not seem to 

 outrage any sense of propriety. Works like those of Wat- 

 son (" Reasoning Power of Animals "), Broderip (" Zoo- 

 logical Recreations "), Bingley (" Animal Biography "), 

 Swainson (" Habits and Instincts of Animals "), too often 

 interpret facts so that they will fit preconceived opinions. 

 There is a story, for example, by Captain Shipp, of how, 

 during the siege of Bhurtpore, an elephant pushed another 

 one into a well because he had appropriated his bucket. 

 Tales like this resemble pictures in which the design and 

 execution are both weak, and which depend for their effect 

 upon accessories illegitimately introduced into the com- 



