DO ANIMALS THINK? 



MR. JOHN BURROUGHS contributed 

 some time ago to Harpers Magazine an 

 article bearing the above title. The lead- 

 ing American naturalist is so weighty an 

 authority that I feel chary about controverting any 

 statement made by him ; but I cannot believe that he 

 is right when he boldly asserts that animals never 

 think at all. I agree with Mr. Burroughs when he says 

 " we are apt to speak of the lower animals in terms 

 that we apply to our own kind." There is undoubtedly 

 a general tendency to give animals credit for much 

 greater intelligence, far more considerable powers of 

 reasoning, than they actually possess ; in short, to put 

 an anthropomorphic interpretation on their actions. 



But it seems to me that Mr. Burroughs rushes to the 

 other extreme. To deny to animals the power of 

 thought is surely as opposed to facts as to credit them 

 with almost human powers of reasoning. Says Mr. 

 Burroughs : " Animals act with a certain grade of 

 intelligence in the presence of things, but they carry 

 away no concepts of those things as a man does, 

 because they have no language. How could a crow 

 tell his fellows of some future event or of some experi- 

 ence of the day ? How could he tell them this thing is 



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