54 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



forced to make abstractions. A dog which has lost his 

 master runs towards a group of men, by virtue of a general 

 abstract idea, which represents to him the qualities possessed 

 in common with these men by his master. He then experiences 

 in succession several less general, but still abstract ideas of sen- 

 sation, until he meets the particular sensation which he seeks." * 



Again, with regard to the stag, this author writes : — " He 

 exhausts every variety and every design of which the action 

 of flight consists. He has perceived that in thickets, where 

 the passage of his body leaves a strong trace, the dogs follow 

 him ardently, and without any checks ; he therefore leaves 

 the thicket and plunges into the forests where there is no 

 underwood, or else skirts the high-road. Sometimes he 

 leaves that part of the country altogether, and depends wholly 

 on his speed for escape. But even when out of hearing of 

 the dogs, he knows that they will soon come up with him ; 

 and, instead of giving himself up to false security, he avails 

 himself of this respite to invent new artifices to throw them 

 out. He takes a straight course, returns on his steps, and 

 bounding from the earth many times consecutively, throws 

 out the sagacity of the dogs. . . . When hard pressed he will 

 often drop down in the hope that their ardour will carry 

 them beyond the track, and should it do so he retraces his 

 steps. Often he seeks the company of others of his species, 

 and when his friend is sufficiently heated to share the peril 

 with, he leaves him to his fate and escapes by rapid flight. 

 Frequently the quarry is thus changed, and this artifice is one 

 the success of which is most certain." f 



" Often (when not being hunted at all), instead of returning 

 home in confidence and straightway lying down to rest, he 

 will wander round the spot ; he enters the wood, leaves it, 



• Ibid., p. 107. This identical illustration appears to have occurred independ- 

 ently both to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Leslie Stephen. All these writers use the 

 terms "abstract " and " general " as above ; but, of course, as shown in my last 

 chapter, this is merely a matter of terminology — in my opinion, however, 

 objectionable, because appearing to assume, without analysis, that the ideation of 

 brutes and of men is identical in kind, 



t Ibid., pp. 43, 44. 



