QUADRUPEDS. 



353 



from what a human being would have done in like circum- 

 stances." 



And is not this a legitimate deduction'? and will it not 

 apply to all the examples we have enumerated, and to 

 thousands of others 1 The Elephant had never been taught 

 to lift wheels when they threatened to crush fallen men; 

 nor the Fox to transfer his own peril to a stray Badger ; 

 nor the Hare to run to and fro under a gate; nor the 

 blind man's Dog to give a wide berth to the rampart's 

 verge. The actions were not the results of education, of 

 habits induced by training. Neither were they, or any of 

 them, marked by " unerring certainty in the means," or 

 " uniformity in the results," nor can it be said that they 

 were '''performed independently of all experience;" they 

 differed in toto from instinctive actions. Every one of 

 them indicates a reasoning power, combining cause with 

 effect, using the light of past experience, or perceiving 

 the suitability -of some resource to present emergency, and 

 that, in one or two of the cases, as in those of the Fox and 

 the Hare, with a sudden promptitude which in man would 

 have been admired as presence of mind. Why should we 

 hesitate to call it so here ? 



Instances are not wanting in which the inferior animals 

 have manifested a capacity for comprehending some of the 

 more abstract notions, such as time, number, and language 

 — notions which certainly have little 'in common with in- 

 stinct. Southey, in " Omniana," mentions two Dogs which 

 were able to count the days of the week. One of these, he 

 savs, belonged to his grandfather, and was in the habit of 

 trudging two miles every Saturday to cater for himself in 

 the shambles. " 1 know," he adds, "a more extraordinary 



