president's addeess. 191 



•whose conduct supplies the most difficult problems for solution, 

 the dog, the elephant, the monkey, &e., are chiefly known to us 

 in a state of domestication, that is, educated by their connection 

 with man ; not only having their faculties developed by that 

 connection, but having habits formed in which there is often a 

 nexus of thought derived, not from the action of their own minds, 

 but from the reason of man. In cases of direct instruction this 

 is obvious enough, but I refer to cases in which there has been 

 no direct instruction, but in which the animal adopts, by imita- 

 tion, acts involving thought which it has often witnessed, and 

 which, by the action of association, become ordinary phenomena 

 of adaptation. I may refer as instances to the cases told of dogs 

 using the latch to open a door, and ponies that of a gate or of a 

 cornbin. To the same circumstance is to be attributed the in- 

 creased intelligence said to be manifested by certain persecuted 

 races, the rat and the fox for example, arising from their contest 

 with man and the trained agents employed by him, and their 

 increased cunning in eluding his snares. 



The question has hence been raised, are animals rendered 

 more or less intelligent by domestication ? 



That they acquire new and special aptitudes is of course ad- 

 mitted, but it has been denied that on the whole their intelli- 

 gence has been increased. They soon reach the limit of their 

 powers, it is said, beyond which no progress is made ; and this 

 must be the case if the foregoing principles be true. It has even 

 been maintained that animals lose by domestication. Buffon 

 came to this opinion from observing the beaver at the Jardin 

 des Plantes, and the analogy of the effect of slavery on man has 

 been quoted in support of the opinion. 



But this view cannot be maintained. If animals do not gain 

 much in general intelligence under domestication, it would be 

 contrary to analogy that their special faculties should not be 

 rendered more acute by companionship with man. That the 

 beaver, whose intelligence, apart from his special instinct, is not 

 of the highest order, should have disappointed his admirers and 

 shown some awkwardness in his new sphere of life is not sur- 

 prising; and had as much been done to educate the negro as 



