Mental Processes in Animals. 



and foundation are practically identical ? The senses and 

 sense-organs give, in all normal individuals, sense-data, 

 which differ only within comparatively narrow limits ; and 

 though the intellectual and moral world of the Bushman 

 and the North Australian may differ profoundly from those 

 of Shakespeare and Pascal, the perceptual world is, we 

 have every reason to suppose, within these narrow limits, 

 the same. This we may fairly believe ; but even so there 

 must be, nay, we know that there are, very great differences 

 in the interpretation of the perceptual world. The indi- 

 vidual cannot divest himself of the intellectual and con- 

 ceptual part of his nature. We, for whom phenomena are 

 more or less conditioned by science, find it difficult to 

 think ourselves into the position of the savage, whose 

 perceptual world is conditioned by crude superstition. 

 The elements of his perceptual world are the same as 

 ours, but the light of knowledge in which we view them is, 

 for him, very dim. When we try to realize his world we 

 find it exceedingly difficult. 



And when we come to the lower animals — even those 

 nearest us in the scale of life — the difficulties are 

 enormously increased. The sense-data are probably much 

 the same, but they are combined in different proportions. 

 Olfactory sensation must, one would suppose, be built into 

 the constructs of the dog and the deer to an extent which 

 we cannot at all realize. And then, as Mr. P. GL Hamerton 

 has well said, we have to take into account the immensity 

 of the ignorance of animals. That ignorance, in combina- 

 tion with perfect perceptual clearness (ignorance and 

 mental clearness are quite compatible) and with incon- 

 ceivably strong instincts, produces a creature whose mental 

 states we can never accurately understand. 



I am tempted here to give the instance Mr. Hamerton 

 quotes * in illustration of the ignorance of animals. 



" The following account of the behaviour of a cow," he 

 says, "gives a glimpse of the real nature of the animal. 

 These long-tailed cows, say Messrs. Hue and Gabet, are so 



* " Chapters on Animals," p. 9. 



