ON THE FACTORS OF EVOLUTION IN LANGUAGE. 241 
(p. 125), This is quite true ; but itis equally true that it is only 
by analogy we know, or can know, anything of the minds of 
other men, or whether they have minds at all:—it is only by 
the analogy of other men’s forms, features, and actions with 
my own that I know myself not to be 
“Unter Larven die einzige fiihlende Brust,” 
the only sentient being in a world of masks. 
But before he finally dismisses the subject of the intelli- 
gence of animals, by a fortunate inconsistency he quotes an 
instance which most clearly shows the nature and the limita- 
tions of the lowest conscious intelligence :— 
*« A’ pike, which swallowed all small fishes which were put 
into his aquarium, was separated from them by a frame of 
- glass, so that whenever he tried to pounce on them he struck 
his gills against the glass, and sometimes so violently that he 
remained lying on his back as though dead. He recovered, 
however, and repeated his onslaughts till they became rarer 
and rarer, and at last, after three months, ceased altogether. 
After having been thus in solitary confinement for six months, 
the frame of glass was removed from the aquarium, so that 
the pike could again roam about freely among the other fishes. 
He at once swam towards them, but he never touched any one 
of them, but always halted at a respectful distance of about an 
inch, and was satisfied to share with the rest the meat that 
was thrown into the aquarium. He had therefore been trained 
_ so as not to attack the other fishes which he knew as inhabi- 
tants of the same tank. As soon, however, as a strange fish 
was thrown into the aquarium, the pike in nowise respected 
him, but swallowed him at once.” * 
Here is reasoning, with its result in action, just as we 
practise it ourselves. The pike, having tried to eat his com- 
panions, got badly hurt in the attempt, and left it off. The 
reasoning was sound in substance, and—only the pike did not 
know it—was syllogistic in form; the major premise of the 
syllogism was the truth of the uniformity of nature; or, to put 
it into simpler words, that what has happened once will 
probably happen again under the same circumstances.  'T'his, 
as Mill has remarked, is the major premise of all reasoning 
whatever respecting the world that surrounds us ; and, though 
it cannot be doubted, it does not admit of proof. The belief 
in it is an instinct, common to all animals whose actions are 
guided by sensation. Prof. Max Miiller quotes the saying of 
Mill, that “not only the burned child, but the burned dog 
* Professor Mobius, quoted by Prof. Max Miiller, p. 11. 
