168 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



the most elementary forms of speech. An intelli- 

 gent bird like the parrot, on the other hand, will 

 articulate human language perfectly, and yet with 

 no mind behind to furnish the link between the 

 spoken words and the ideas they represent. 



The relationship between cause and effect appears 

 to the human mind so self-evident that in certain 

 systems of philosophy it is regarded as the most 

 elementary and fundamental of all knowledge. Yet 

 there is certainly no conception of it in the minds 

 of most animals. The common domestic fowl will 

 suffer the utmost inconvenience in tossing loose 

 pieces of green food over her head in the endeavour 

 to break off morsels small enough to swallow. 

 After a time she learns by experience that pieces 

 under her, upon which she happens to be standing, 

 are conveniently fixed, and she wiU look for them 

 there. Yet for two seasons in which I had a group 

 of Buff Orpingtons under close and almost daily 

 observation in relation to this fact, I never once, 

 during the hundreds of times I witnessed the act, 

 could be sure that I saw any of them connect the 

 cause with the effect, and consciously grasp with 

 her claw, or hold down in position, a piece of food. 

 Green food did not grow in detached pieces in 

 nature, and the automaton, adjusted to nature, 

 contained, therefore, no response. Even where 

 animals perform such acts with apparent intelligence, 

 we never can be sure how far the result is due to 

 inherited reflex action. We ourselves blink at a 

 blow which threatens the eye, and duck our heads 

 at the sound of shells ; but we do so without any 

 conscious intervention of mind reasoning from cause 

 to effect. We do it because we have inherited the 



