124 STUPIDITY. 



the German Arctic Expedition, this apparent indifference 

 to man's presence is attributable to defective hearing and 

 vision. 



The Greenland (or arctic) fox even seeks man's society 

 ' in perfect innocence and without any suspicion.' Our own 

 common fox, usually and properly regarded as one of the 

 most cautious and cunning, sagacious or shrewd of four- 

 footed creatures, having at all times all its ( wits ' about it, 

 nevertheless becomes occasionally so bewildered or frightened 

 as to commit the most foolish actions. Thus one found 

 wandering in the streets of Newcastle, described as having 

 been ' in a state of evident indecision,' * deliberately ran into 

 a sack whose mouth was held temptingly open for its cap- 

 ture. It may be and has been frightened nearly * out of its 

 wits' by a steam-engine whistle, the result being that its terror 

 led it, as in the other case, into the very jaws of that danger 

 which, in ordinary circumstances, it would have been so cir- 

 cumspect in avoiding. 



Even in the usually intelligent dog countless are the 

 instances that might be adduced of its stupidity. Hogg 

 tells us that if a turmoil arise about a farm-house from cows 

 getting among the corn, or hens into the garden, the highly- 

 bred and specially accomplished c shepherd's dog knows not 

 what is astir, and if he is called in a hurry (to turn out the 

 one or other trespasser), all that he will do is to hark to the 

 hill and rear himself up on end to see if no sheep are running 

 away.' In short, he is possessed of and by one single domi- 

 nant idea the care of sheep ; and his uselessness in such a 

 common domestic crisis is apparently to be attributed to de- 

 fective education, to the cultivation of his intelligence only in 

 one direction ; in other words, it is a striking and suggestive 

 result of the evils of specialisation in educational treatment, 

 without due or any regard to the general intelligence, or to 

 the whole psychical nature, moral and intellectual. 



Wood mentions a dog of his own that tore a hole in a 



hedge large enough to? admit the passage of itself with a 



stick carried by the middle in its teeth ; whereas a much 



smaller hole and much less trouble would have sufficed to 



1 ' Daily Review,' December 16, 1874. 



