110 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



process of reasoning, as surely as would a philosopher in his 

 longest chain of deductions. There would no doubt be this 

 di£Eerence between him and one of the higher animals, that 

 he would take notice of much slighter circumstances and 

 , conditions, and would observe any connection between them 

 after much less experience, and this would be of paramount 

 importance. I kept a daily record of the actions of one of 

 my infants, and when he was about eleven months old, and 

 before he could speak a single word, I was continually 

 struck with the greater quickness with which all sorts of 

 objects and sounds were associated together in his mind, 

 compared with that of the most intelligent dogs I ever 

 knew. But the higher animals differ in exactly the same 

 way in this power of association from those low in the scale, 

 such as the pike, as well as in that of drawing inferences 

 and of observation. 



The promptings of reason, after very short experience, 

 are well shown by the following actions of American mon- 

 keys, which stand low in their order. Eengger, a most 

 careful observer, states that when he first gave eggs to 

 his monkeys in Paraguay, they smashed them and thus lost 

 much of their contents; afterward they gently hit one end 

 against some hard body, and picked o£E the bits of shell 

 with their fingers. After cutting themselves only once with 

 any sharp tool they would not touch it again, or would han- 

 dle it with the greatest caution. Lumps of sugar were often 

 given them wrapped up in paper; and Eengger sometimes 

 put a live wasp in the paper, so that in hastily unfolding it 

 they got stung; after this had once happened, they always 

 first held the packet to their ears to detect any movement 

 within." 



The following cases relate to dogs. Mr. Colquhoun" 

 winged two wild ducks, which fell on the further side of a 



" Mr. Belt, in his most interesting -Work, "Ihe Naturalist in Nicaragua," 

 18t4, p. 119, likewise describes various actions of a tamed Cebus, which, I 

 think, clearly show that this animal possessed some reasoning power. 



21 "The Moor and the Loch," p. 45. Col. Hutchinson on "Dog Break- 

 ing," 1860, p. 46. 



