president's address, 187 



the phenomena of Instinct Reason is there, in that mode of it, 

 at least, which is manifested unconnected with organization 

 throughout the universe. Shall we say impersonal Eeason ? 

 or rather with Newton that of the Creator, of which he be- 

 lieved Instinct to be an immediate phenomenon ! 



But I leave the subject of Instinct in the lower orders of ani- 

 mals, a subject full of interest as well as mystery, but which I 

 cannot dwell on further now, and pass on to intelligence espe- 

 cially in the higher animals. Here the adaptive power, which 

 in the ganglionic is only rarely and exceptionally manifested, 

 unless it be in the form of a confirmed habit or instinct, is more 

 developed and more free. We perceive in them mental faculties 

 resembling our own : in what respect do they differ — in degree 

 or in kind ? 



Now, if we observe attentively the dog, we see that he has 

 not only the same senses that we have, sight, hearing, touch, 

 taste, smell, with the sensations and perceptions peculiar to 

 each, but also certain other mental faculties similar to our 

 own. He can reproduce the impressions made on his senses 

 by memory. Those ideas are linked together by the same laws 

 of association, so that one idea suggests another in a connected 

 train — the dog dreams and forms mental habits. He has judg- 

 ment ; — of two or more suggested ideas, he can select that 

 adapted to a proximate end. He has attention or the powe.r of 

 concentrating his faculties on the subject which occupies him, 

 and, consequently, abstraction. We see these faculties of intel- 

 ligence set in motion by certain appetites and desires ; accompa- 

 nied by certain emotions of pleasure and pain ; and governed by 

 love, hate, anger, fear. Such is the mental furniture which we 

 find in him ; and there is nothing to distinguish it in kind, as 

 far as it goes, from the analogous powers of the human mind. 



Now let it be observed, that these faculties belong exclusively 

 to what is termed the Understanding in man, which deals with 

 sense and the contingent facts of experience alone, as distin- 

 guished from Reason, which deals with these in their relation to 

 a higher sphere, that of thought, which has to do with truths 



