LEAF AND TENDRIL 



butting the gate would not open it. How surely such 

 conduct as this of the cow's evinces reason to most 

 persons ! But shall we not rather call it the blind 

 gropings of instinct stimulated into action by the 

 sight and odor of the tender vegetables ? Many of 

 the lowest organisms show just as much intelligence 

 about their food as did the old cow. Even the 

 American sundew, according to Mrs. Treat, will 

 move its leaves so that it can seize a fly pinned half 

 an inch from it. The method of the old cow was 

 that of hit and miss, or trial and error. She wanted 

 the corn, and she butted the gate, and as luck would 

 have it, when she hit the latch the gate swung open. 

 But shall we conclude that the beast had any idea 

 of the principle of the gate ? Or any idea at all but 

 the sense impression made upon her hunger by the 

 growing vegetables ? Animals do not connect cause 

 and effect as we do by thinking the "therefore;" 

 they simply associate one thing with another. Your 

 dog learns to associate your act of taking your hat 

 and cane with a walk, or your gun with the delights 

 of the chase, or with its report, if he is afraid of it, 

 and so on. Without this power of association the 

 birds and beasts could not get on in life; the con- 

 tinuity of their experience would be broken. It is 

 a rude kind of memory — sense memory. A sense 

 impression to-day revives a sense impression of yes- 

 terday, or of the day before, and that is about all 

 there is of it. 



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