INTELLIGENCE IN ANIMALS. 187 



repeats it in the expectation that some good result 

 will follow, though without knowing what this may 

 be. However, in the present case there was no imi- 

 tation, nor certainly could any instinct have been in 

 question. Mr. Layard mentions other cases, of which 

 the same may be said. " I have known dogs shake a 

 door violently," he says, " to attract attention and be 

 let in. A dear old spaniel of ours at the Cape used 

 to rattle the empty bucket if he was thirsty, and then 

 come and look in our faces. My horse will come up 

 from his pasture to the pump in the yard, and whinny 



till some one gives him water Surely all this is 



abstract reasoning/' he proceeds. " These things are 

 not taught them, and they do not do all of them even 

 by imitation. I don't go to the pump and whinny 

 if I want drink ! nor rattle a bucket ! No ! they come 

 by a process of mental reasoning, and I am convinced 

 all animals have it to a certain degree, more or less." 

 There have been cases which have afforded oppor- 

 tunity of noting the behaviour of an animal when 

 first some new experience has occurred to it, and (as 

 it would seem) new ideas have been suggested. Such 

 cases are of extreme importance in determining 

 whether animals really reason or not ; because it must 

 be admitted that in some instances where animals 

 have appeared to reason, the action noted may possibly 

 have originated, in the first instance, by accident, and 

 have been continued subsequently as a mere habit. 

 It is rather unfortunate that the only animals which 

 we can observe under favourable conditions domestic 



