106 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



strangers, and I purposely tried Ms memory after an ab- 

 sence of five years and two days. I went near the stable 

 where lie lived, and shouted to him in my old manner; he 

 showed no joy, but instantly followed me out walking, and 

 obeyed me, exactly as if I had parted with him only half an 

 hour before. A train of old associations, dormant during 

 five years, had thus been instantaneouslj'' awakened in his 

 mind. Even ants, as P. Huber'^ has cloiarly shown, recog- 

 nized their fellow-ants belonging to the same community 

 after a separation of four month^. Animals can certainly 

 by some means judge of the intervals of time between recur- 

 rent events. 



The Imagination is one of the highest prerogatives of 

 man. By this faculty he unites former images and ideas, 

 independently of the will, and thus creates brilliant and 

 novel results. A poet, as Jean Paul Eichter remarks," 

 "who must reflect whether he shall make a character say 

 yes or no — to the devil with him; he is only a stupid 

 corpse." Dreaming gives us the best notion of this power; 

 as Jean Paul again says, "The dream is an involuntary art 

 of poetry." The value of the products of our imagination 

 depends of course on the number, accuracy, and clearness 

 of our impressions, on our judgment and taste in selecting 

 or rejecting the involuntary combinations, and to a certain 

 extent on our power of voluntarily combining them. As 

 dogs, cats, horses, and probably all the higher animals, even 

 birds,"" have vivid dreams, and this is shown by their move- 

 ments and the sounds uttered, we must admit that they pos- 

 sess some power of imagination. There must be something 

 special which causes dogs to howl in the night, and espe- 

 cially during moonlight, in that remarkable and melancholy 

 manner called baying. All dogs do not do so; and, accord- 



's "Lea Mceurs des Poiirmis," 1810, p. 150. 



" Quoted in Dr. Maudsley's "Physiology and Pathology of Mind," 1868, 

 pp. 19, 220. 



'^ Dr. Jerdon, "Birds of India," vol. i., 1862, p. xxi. Houzeau says that 

 his paroquet and canary-birds dreamed: "Facult^s mentales, " torn. li. p. 136. 



