EVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 37 



many new habits originated ! Look again at the acquisition of 

 teeth. From a soft uniform diet the animal no doubt gradually 

 learned to appropriate hard substances, and what a world of ex- 

 perience and consequent habit must have been at once placed in 

 its way ! 



These acquisitions are of course mental, and include both 

 kinds of contiguity, viz., that of succession in time, and that of 

 association through resemblance. Animals choose between objects 

 chiefly in accordance with the first mode, but are not lacking in 

 the second quality. As an example of the latter, classification ac- 

 cording to color is exhibited by some birds, which choose brightly 

 colored objects and reject dull ones — the Australian bower-bird, 

 for instance. 



As is well known to metaphysicians, these acquisitions lead to 

 '^predication" and "forethought." Thus a hound becomes ac- 

 quainted with the habit of a buck or rabbit in doubling, or in fol- 

 lowing a given circuit. The recurrence of the chase recalls the 

 habit in consequence of contiguity of the impression of the former 

 pursuit of the animal and the course it took. The hound then 

 supposes or " predicates " that the deer will repeat the course. We 

 know that some do so from the fact that they have been observed 

 to cut off the curves in the animal's track, or to station themselves 

 at the point where the deer, for instance, will pass. In the sec- 

 ond act forethought is also involved. The hound sacrifices the 

 lesser pleasure of the chase for the greater one of securing the 

 prey. In forethought, experience having taught which circum- 

 stance results in greater and which in less pleasure, action is re- 

 strained in the presence of the second for the sake of procuring 

 the first. Thus in ants, immediate pleasure suggests a life of labor 

 enough for present wants, and ease for the remaining time ; but 

 the greater pleasure of existence during some time of scarcity has 

 induced some of them to lay up a store, which has develoj^ed into 

 the complete protection against winter they display in cold cli- 

 mates. 



In the cases cited it is perfectly evident that the hound would 

 never have learned to predicate had he not had limbs to bring him 

 in contact (by pursuit) with the habits of the buck. Nor would 

 the ant have learned to provide if it had not been furnished with 

 the jaws necessary to the excavation of chambers and the carrying 

 of food. And neither would have performed these mental acts 

 had they not possessed nervous centers capable of sensation, reten- 



