5462 Reason and Instinct. 



plausible explanation of the conduct of these two brutes can be given, 

 except that involved in the concession of the idea — the abstract idea — 

 of danger, and of danger, moreover, threatening their master or their 

 master's family. 



I will select another instance or two. " Two small terriers were in 

 the habit of leaving their home together and hunting rabbits in a warren 

 at some distance from it. One of them got so far into a rabbit-burrow 

 that he could not extricate himself. His companion returned to the 

 house, and by whining and using many significant gestures, attracted 

 the notice of his master. When he had done this he ran a short 

 way forward and then returned ; and, after repeating this some time, 

 his master was induced to follow him. The dog led him to the rabbit- 

 burrow, and he began to bark and scratch violently ; and, on procuring 

 a spade, the dog was dug out." (' Gleanings,' i. 230; . Again ; amid the 

 gloom of a dark night a dog is observed incessantly barking before the 

 leaders of a mail-coach travelling at its usual rapid pace, and jumping 

 up at the horse's heads. Fearful of an accident the coachman pulls 

 up, and the guard gets down to drive the animal away. " The dog, 

 however, ran a little way before the guard and then returned to him, 

 making use of such peculiar gestures that he was induced to take out 

 one of the lamps and follow the dog. About a hundred yards on he 

 found a farmer lying drunk across the road, and his horse grazing by 

 the side of it." (' Gleanings,' i. 235). 



How are the actions of these two dogs to be accounted for ? To 

 me it appears most evident that there was in the mind of each of them 

 an influential idea at work, and that that idea was there through a 

 process of abstraction. It was with the view of obtaining help or 

 assistance that they acted as they did ; and the abstract idea of aid — 

 in the one case needed by the companion dog, in the other by the 

 actor's master — was the influencing motive to the several actions 

 recorded. Indeed, in the second case, there was something more : 

 there was a combination or " compounding" of ideas and motives. 

 Had the coach gone on the master would have been grievously in- 

 jured, possibly killed. The dog's attempt — I think we may fairly say 

 his thought and wish — was therefore to stop the coach ; the attempt 

 and wish to stop the coach originating, of course, in his perception of 

 his master's danger, and his desire to avert it. But when the coach 

 was stopped, he wished and aimed at something more, and that was 

 help ; and, therefore, he ran before the guard in the way noted, and 

 otherwise conducted himself so as to induce the guard to follow him 

 to the place where his helpless master lay, and — what his own force 



