CHAPTER IV. 



STUDY BY OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT. 



BY far the best way to acquaint oneself with the phenomena 

 of mind in the lower animals is by the personal observation 

 of animal habits. I can conceive no one so unfortunately 

 placed as not to have opportunity of observing the behaviour 

 of such animals as the horse, dog, cattle, sheep, or poultry, 

 or the domestic pets, such as the cat or canary. Even 

 blindness has not proved a barrier to observation and ex- 

 periment of the most valuable kind ; for Francois Huber, the 

 famous Swiss naturalist, distinguished for his researches on 

 bees (in which he was able to expose the errors of pre- 

 decessors, who did not labour under his physical disability), 

 was blind. Nor is poverty an obstacle to observation 

 and enquiry ; J for there are, perhaps, no more sincere lovers 

 of animals, of home pets, no keener observers of animal 

 character, than the poor, who make real companions of 

 their dogs, cats, and canaries, of their horses, donkeys, and 

 pigs. The obstacles to personal observation are, therefore, 

 merely nominal and visionary. In truth, * where there's a 

 will there's a way.' 



The faculty of observation, however, requires to be culti- 

 vated or trained. The eye must be trained to the accurate 

 notice of phenomena ; the memory to the recollection of facts ; 

 the judgment to the drawing of logical inferences from facts. 

 There has been much false observation and much false or in- 

 correct record of facts, much false reasoning on these false 

 facts, on the subject of what has hitherto been known as 



1 As is well illustrated in Smiles 's ' Life of a Scottish Naturalist 'Thomas 

 Edwards, the poor journeyman shoemaker of Banff. 



