INSTINCT AND REASON. 59 



our prepondeiatingly intellectual and rational ed- 

 ucation. 



On the other hand, there can now be very lit- 

 tle doubt that many of the lower animals possess 

 distinct and decided reasoning faculties of a low 

 grade. To take an exami)le from a comparatively 

 humble and despised animal, here is a case of ap- 

 parent reasoning cited by Mr. Darwin on the part 

 of a crab. A competent observer was watching a 

 shore-crab making its burrow, and he threw some 

 shells over towards the hole, just to see what the 

 crab would make of them. One of the shells 

 rolled down the sides of the burrow, and three 

 others landed on the edge a little way off. In 

 about five minutes the crab appeared at the mouth 

 of his tunnel, carrying out the shell that had fallen 

 in, and removed it safely to the distance of a foot. 

 On his way back he saw the three other shells 

 lying close by, and, regarding them closely, evi- 

 dently reflected that they were very likely to roll 

 in too. So he lifted them up carefully in his jaws 

 and deposited them in safety beside the first that 

 he had removed from the burrow. Now it is 

 clearly mere verbal juggling to ?all such a delib- 

 erate act as this instinctive. The crab had no 

 inherited knowledge of the fact that shells are 

 liable to roll into crab-burrows ; he merely 

 reasoned from his experience of the behavior of 

 one such shell to the probable behavior of others 



