2 MENTAL QUALITIES OF THE HORSE. 



Advance in nervous development is brought about chiefly 

 by the principles that use strengthens a function ; that 

 offspring more or less resembles the parent or parents, 

 according as there has been, respectively, one or two 

 engaged in its reproduction ; and that those beings which 

 are best fitted to their surroundings, are the most likely 

 to survive in the struggle for existence. Thus, as w^e 

 ascend the scale of life, we find that the nervous system, 

 in becoming developed, endows the animal with many 

 faculties. Consciousness, memory, and instincts appear 

 early ; but the power of drawing conclusions latest of all. 

 As all these faculties, instinctive as well as intellectual, are, 

 as far as we can find out, manifestations of the nervous 

 system, it may not be unreasonable to regard what is called 

 mind and the nervous system as one and the same thing. 

 Degree of development seems to be the only difference 

 between the mind of man and that of brutes. 



Consciousness, ideas, memory, habit, and instinct. — 

 Many of the actions of animals are performed in direct 

 response to stimuli applied to sensory nerves (those of 

 feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling), as, for in- 

 stance, when we draw our hand back in the event of one 

 of our fingers being accidentally pricked, or when we 

 blink our eyes on some unexpected object suddenly 

 approaching them. These automatic movements may be 

 comparatively simple, such as the two 1 have just cited ; 

 or complex, as when the touch, smell, and no doubt sight, 

 of its dam's teat stimulate the newly-dropped foal to suck, 

 or when a sleeping man brushes off a fly which is irritating 



