WAYS OF NATURE 
practicing its steps by the light of the moon. This is 
just as credible as many of the animal stories one 
hears nowadays. 
Many of the actions of the lower animals are as 
automatic as those of the tin rooster that serves as 
a weather-vane. See how intelligently the rooster 
acts, always pointing the direction of the wind with- 
out a moment’s hesitation. Or behold the vessel 
anchored in the harbor, how intelligently it adjusts 
itself to the winds and the tides! I have seen a log, 
caught in an eddy in a flooded stream, apparently 
make such struggles to escape that the thing became 
almost uncanny in its semblance to life. Man him- 
self often obeys just such unseen currents of race or 
history when he thinks he is acting upon his own 
initiative. 
When I was in Alaska, I saw precipices down 
which hundreds of horses had dashed themselves in 
their mad and desperate efforts to escape from the 
toil and suffering they underwent on the White Pass 
trail. Shall we say these horses deliberately com- 
mitted suicide? Suicide it certainly was in effect, but 
of course not in intention. What does or can a horse 
know about death, or about self-destruction ? These 
animals were maddened by their hardships, and 
blindly plunged down the rocks. 
The tendency to humanize the animals is more 
and more marked in all recent nature books that aim 
at popularity. A recent British book on animal life 
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