Mind in the Lower Animals. 179 



use? In the latter case the evidence of mind may be clearer, but 

 in the other, is it absent ? Or, finally, the act called instinctive 

 may be attributed to the immediate presence and action of the 

 Divine mind. But in some form or other, mind must be present, 

 and we cannot escape it, as some seem to imagine they do by call- 

 ing certain cases in which it seems to be present, instinctive. The 

 bird must choose a place in which to build her nest. Is this in- 

 stinctive? Think of it a moment. How shoald a bird be pre- 

 arranged to select, from thousands of places in which her nest 

 might be securely built, the one she does select ? Does she 

 not look about, and after considerable search and consideration, 

 at last fix upon the spot which, upon the whole, she likes best. 

 Then again, is her search for and choice of materials a blind 

 one, in which she follows, mechanically, the unvarying condi- 

 tions of a fated or at any rate a fixed mechanism ? No, it must 

 be that however perfectly the material organism is prearranged 

 for action, under favoring conditions, that it has within it a mind, 

 which, it is true, has a less sphere of spontaneity than belongs 

 to man, and which works therefore under more rigid condi- 

 tions than in man ; but still mind is there. By the limitations 

 of its automatic organism, it is made' unnecessary for it to go the 

 round of experience to learn, for it begins where man ends, or 

 tends to end; that is, with an organism, embodying an organized 

 experience prior to the fact. By this means, the lower animals 

 whose lives are short, are enabled to begin their life-work at once, 

 and from the first to avoid mistakes as a rule. But coupled with 

 this freedom from errors in their acts, is the corresponding inabil- 

 ity to perceive or correct them when they have been made. Jast 

 in proportion as automatic action prevails, does spontaneity and 

 inventive capacity and adaptability disappear. Hence, these lat- 

 ter elements are found in the greatest measure in man, and in the 

 least in the lower animals. Bat this is to be remembered, that 

 by attributing the actions of the lower animals to instinct, we do 

 not therefore exclude the mind, though this is commonly sup- 

 posed to have been done in such a case. Evan in view of those 

 actions, then, which are most clearly automatic, mind is probably 

 present, and hence by this mode of reasoning we cannot exclude 

 the lower animals from participating in it, in common with man. 



