2,62 Animal Life and Intelligence. 



case by speaking of these as unconscious inferences. When 

 the inference is not immediate and unconscious, but in- 

 volves a more individual conscious act of the mind in the 

 perceptual sphere, we may speak of it as intelligent ; and 

 when the inference can only be reached by analysis and the 

 use of concepts, we may call it rational. 



Denning, therefore, "inference" as the passing of the 

 mind from something immediately given to something not 

 given but suggested through association and experience, 

 we have thus three stages of inference : (1) unconscious 

 inference on immediate construction (perceptual) ; (2) in- 

 telligent inference, dealing with constructs and reconstructs 

 (perceptual) ; and (3) rational inference, implying analysis 

 and isolation (conceptual). 



Concerning unconscious inferences in animals, I need 

 add nothing to that which I have already said concerning 

 the process of construction. It is concerning the intelligent 

 inferences * of animals that I have now to speak. 



I do not propose here to bring forward a number of 

 new observations on the highly intelligent actions which 

 animals are capable of performing. Mr. Eomanes has 

 given us a most valuable collection of anecdotes on the 

 subject in his volume on "Animal Intelligence." It is 

 more to my purpose to discuss some of the more remark- 

 able of these, and endeavour to get at the back of them, 

 so as to estimate what are the mental processes involved. 

 In doing so, the principle I adopt is to assume that the 

 inferences are perceptual, unless there seem to be well- 

 observed facts which necessitate the analysis of the 



* These fall under the " practical intelligence " of Mr. Mivart. All their 

 intelligent activities, in his view, are performed by the exercise of merely 

 sensitive faculties, through their " consentieuce." I agree to so large an 

 extent with ]\Ir. Mivart in his estimate of animal intelligence, and in his 

 psychological treatment, that I the more regret our wide divergence when we 

 come to the philosophy of the subject. I am with him in believing that 

 conception and perception, in the sense he uses the words, are beyond the 

 reach of the brute. But I see no reason to suppose that these higher faculties 

 differ in hind from the lower faculties possessed by animals. They differ 

 generically, but not in kind. I believe that, through the aid of language, 

 the higher faculties have been developed and evolved from the lower faculties. 

 Here, therefore 5 1 have to part company from Mr. Mivart. 



