INTELLIGENCE IN ANIMALS. 163 



the thoughts successively suggested to their minds. 

 It almost seems to a mind thus accustomed to reason 

 -with a verbal accompaniment (audible to the mind's 

 ear only) that any mental process not thus accom- 

 panied must be to some degree instinctive, and any 

 actions resulting from such a process automatic. But 

 it is certain that even the most intellectual sometimes 

 act in a manner which, if noticed in an animal, would 

 suggest the exercise of reasoning power, not only 

 without putting their thoughts into mental language, 

 but without, in reality, noting what they are doing. 

 However, the point to be specially noticed about the 

 above story is that the narrator overlooks the most 

 obvious, and probably the true, explanation of the 

 rat's behaviour. The rat could not see the food, but 

 most probably he could smell it. If so, his adventuring 

 up the wall to get it was not the result of reasoning, 

 or, at least, not necessarily so, for that was the 

 shortest path to the much-needed food. Possibly the 

 birds themselves may have been an attraction to him. 

 Certainly the case is not one which compels us to 

 believe that water-rats reason. 



This objection was so well urged, in company with 

 other points necessary to be considered in such 

 inquiries, by a German writer, Herr H. T. Finck, that 

 we quote his remarks almost in full. " Before we 

 ascribe to a rat such complicated reasoning powers/' 

 Herr Finck remarks, ' ' it is necessary to ask if there 

 is no other simpler way of accounting for the pheno- 

 mena. I think there is. It is well-known that different 



