5574 Reason and Instinct, 



characterizing the various orders of beings," which do not come under 

 the category, — are not characterized in any degree by the analogy in 

 question, — I doubt whether we shall find any good ground for enter- 

 taining the conjecture that there may be immaterial essences of divers 

 kinds. We have, indeed, already adduced certain considerations 

 which would lead us to entertain a very different belief: nor do we, so 

 far, recognise any which are antagonistic to it. It might, it is true, 

 but not very likely, be otherwise were the difficulties and deficiencies 

 in the way, and the means of prosecuting our research considerably 

 lessened in number and magnitude ; but, in the present state of our 

 knowledge it seems superfluous to assume the existence of other intel- 

 lectual essences when such a very large portion of the known or ob- 

 served actions and capabilities of animals admit of easy and consistent 

 explanation on the principles of the human mind. 



The opinion here stated seems to me to receive a remarkable degree 

 of confirmation from the fact that animals dream. I suppose there are 

 very few persons who have been in the habit of seeing a dog asleep 

 who have not also witnessed the most convincing proofs that the 

 animal was in dreamland : he fights his battles over again ; he renews 

 the chase of the rabbit or hare with tongue and limb — possibly even is 

 sensible of the seeming pain of an imaginarily renewed castigation or 

 accidental injury. The bird in the cage, too, dreams, and so does the 

 cat on the knee or the hearth-rug. " By dreams," says Butler, " we 

 find we are possessed of a latent and, what would otherwise be, an un- 

 imagined, unknown power of perceiving sensible objects in as strong 

 and lively a manner without our external organs of sense as with them." 

 But is there one word in this sentence that we can change, even if we 

 desired, when we begin to speak of the dreams of a brute instead of 

 those of a human being ? And if not, on what principle are we to say 

 that this latent power of perceiving sensible objects without the help 

 of our external organs of sense belongs to one kind of immaterial 

 essence in the case of the human subject, to another in that of the 

 brute ? 



But, again, dreams have been called the imagination of the sleeping 

 man. Is there any impropriety in applying the definition in the case 

 of the dreaming dog ? I certainly see none, and for the best of all 

 reasons, that the dog is most assuredly endowed with the faculty or 

 power of imagination ; and, with him, almost every other animal we 

 are sufficiently intimate with to be acquainted with a good number of 

 its actions and habits. What is it which makes some nursery tale — 

 ' Little Red Riding Hood,' to wit — so attractive to the child ? It is 



