UNTAUGHT WISDOM 



THOSE who have read some of the things I 

 have published in which I have discredited 

 the reasoning power of the lower animals write me 

 stories of the wonderful intelligence of their cat or 

 their dog or their horse or their canary, and seem to 

 fancy I am or should be silenced. Now I admit that 

 the dog often does things that seem to transcend 

 instinct, but I admit it reluctantly, and ease the 

 admission by the word " seems." I am not certain 

 but that instinct, modified and trained by hundreds 

 of thousands of years of close companionship with 

 man, is adequate to account for all he does. I am 

 not certain that after all these ages of human asso- 

 ciation his mind is developed beyond that of his 

 brother the wolf. He is gentler, more confiding, 

 and more adaptive, but his cunning and his prowess 

 are less, and I doubt if he is any more of a rational 

 being. Domestication improves the wild animals, 

 not by developing their intelligence, but by subdu- 

 ing their wildness and making them more submis- 

 sive to our wills. Like the wild grains and fruits, 

 the more able they are to serve us, the less able 

 are they to shift for themselves. Those persons who 

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