MENTAL POWERS. 73 



them fantastic images: if this be so, their feelings may almost 

 be called superstitious. 



Of all the faculties of the human mind, it will, I presume, be 

 admitted that Reason stands at the summit. Only a few persons 

 now dispute that animals possess some power of reasoning. 

 Animals may constantly be seen to pause, deliberate, and resolve. 

 It is a significant fact, that the more the habits of any particular 

 animal are studied by a naturalist, the more he attributes to 

 reason and the less to unlearned instincts.''" In future chapters 

 we shall see that some animals extremely low in the scale appar- 

 ently display a certain amount of reason. No doubt it is often 

 difficult to distinguish between the power of reason and that of 

 instinct. For instance. Dr. Hayes, In his work on 'The Open 

 Polar Sea,' repeatedly remarks that his dogs, instead of continu- 

 ing to draw the sledges in a compact body, diverged and separ- 

 ated when they came to thin ice, so that their weight might be 

 more evenly distributed. This was often the first warning 

 which the travelers received that the ice was becoming thin and 

 dangerous. Now, did the dogs act thus from the experience of 

 each individual, or from the example of the older and wiser dogs, 

 or from an inherited habit, that is from instinct? This instinct, 

 may possibly have arisen since the time, long ago, when dogs 

 were first employed by the natives in drawing their sledges; or 

 the Arctic wolves, the parent-stock of the Esquimaux dog, may 

 have acquired an instinct, impelling them not to attack their 

 prey in a close pack, when on thin ice. 



We can only judge by the circumstances under which actions 

 are performed, whether they are due to instinct, or to reason, or 

 to the mere association of ideas: this latter principle, however, 

 is intimately connected with reason. A curious case has been 

 given by Prof. M6bius,=' of a pike, separated by a plate of glass 

 from an adjoining aquarium stocked with fish, and who often 

 dashed himself with such violence against the glass in trying to 

 catch the other fishes, that he was sometimes completely 

 stunned. The pike went on thus for three months, but at last 

 learned caution, and ceased to do so. The plate of glass was then 

 removed, but the pike would not attack these particular fishes, 

 though he would devour others which were afterward intro- 

 duced; so strongly was the idea of a violent shock associated 

 in his feeble mind with the attempt on his former neighbors. 

 If a savage, who had never seen a large plate-glass window, 

 were to dash himself even once against it, he would for a long 



22 Mr. li. H. Morgan's work on 'The American Beaver,' 1868, offers 

 a good illustration of this remark. I cannot help thinking, however, 

 that he goes too far in underrating the power of Instinct. 



23 'Die Bewegungen der Thiere,' &c., 1873, p. 11. 



