A PINCH OF SALT 
sense as we have when we think of the same subject. 
The cat has either seen the mouse go into the hole, 
or else she smells him; she knows he is there through 
her senses, and she reacts to that impression. Her 
instinct prompts her to hunt and to catch mice; she 
does n’t need to think about them as we do about 
the game we hunt; Nature has done that for her in 
the shape of an inborn impulse that is awakened 
by the sight or smell of mice. We have no ready way 
to describe her act as she sits intently by the hole 
but to say, “'The cat thinks there is a mouse there,” 
while she is not thinking at all, but simply watch- 
ing, prompted to it by her inborn instinct for mice. 
The cow’s mouth will water at the sight of her 
food when she is hungry. Is she thinking about it ? 
No more than you are when your mouth waters as 
your full dinner-plate is set down before you. Cer- 
tain desires and appetites are aroused through sight 
and smell without any mental cognition. The sexual 
relations of the animals also illustrate this fact. 
We know that the animals do not think in any 
proper sense as we do, or have concepts and ideas, 
because they have no language. To be sure, a deaf 
mute thinks without language because a human 
being has the intelligence which language implies, 
or which was begotten in his ancestors by its use 
through long ages. Not so with the lower animals. 
They are like very young children in this respect; 
they have impressions, perceptions, emotions, but 
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