Chap. XIII.] LOWER ANIMALS. 197 



intuition really rests, in order that they may the more 

 clearly recognize the only means by which it is possible for 

 us to form an opinion as to the existence and nature of 

 Conscious States in the various classes and tribes of lower 

 animals. 



Of course the information obtained by us through 

 Language (whether spoken, written, or printed) as to the 

 Feelings and Thoughts of our fellow-men, is overwhelmingly 

 greater and more certain than that derivable in other ways. 

 But it is precisely this most definite source of knowledge 

 of which we are deprived in the case of the lower animals. 

 In some of them we find only a more or less vague emo- 

 tional or gesture language, of which we have examples in 

 the cries, chirpings, or songs of Birds, and in the sounds, 

 facial movements, and more general actions of Dogs, Apes, 

 and other of the higher animals. But we have not even 

 so much as this to reveal the nature of the subjective 

 states of the great majority of animals.* 



What means have we then of forming an opinion as to 



* Though we are not able to understand very much of their 

 language, it does not at all follow that animals of the same kind 

 may not be able to make their emotional language understood by 

 one another. Swainson says (" Habits and Instincts of Animals," 

 p. 62) : — " 'No attentive observer can have watched them without 

 having perceived the mutual recognition of each other's wants 

 and feelings, which is implied both by voice, look, and action. In 

 many cases, however, this communication is doubtless carried on 

 in a way which we cannot eomprehcnd, and by tones which we 

 are at a loss to interpret. But those intonations in the voice, 

 which we may not be able to catch, are perfectly understood by 

 the animals themselves. It is well known that the ewe and her 

 lamb can distinguish each other even in the most numerous flock, 

 and that when separated for a time and again turned loc;se into 

 the field, the latter instantly recognizes the well-known voice of 

 its dam, and skips joyfully up to her the instant it hears her 

 bleat." 



