A BEAVER'S REASON 



expert in its own line of work — the work of its 

 tribe. Beavers do the work of beavers, they cut 

 down trees and build dams, and all beavers do it 

 alike and with the same degree of untaught skill. 

 This is instinct, or unthinking nature. 



Of a hot day a dog will often dig down to fresh 

 earth to get cooler soil to lie on. Or he will go and 

 lie in the creek. All dogs do these things. Now if the 

 dog were seen to carry stones and sods to dam up the 

 creek to make a deeper pool to lie in, then he would 

 in a measure be imitating the beavers, and this, in 

 the dog, could fairly be called an act of reason, 

 because it is not a necessity of the conditions of his 

 life; it would be of the nature of an afterthought. 



All animals of a given species are wise in their 

 own way, but not in the way of another species. The 

 robin could not build the oriole's nest, nor the oriole 

 build the robin's nor the swallow's. The cunning of 

 the fox is not the cunning of the coon. The squirrel 

 knows a good deal more about nuts than the rabbit 

 does, but the rabbit would live where the squirrel 

 would die. The muskrat and the beaver build 

 lodges much alike, that is, with the entrance under 

 water and an inner chamber above the water, and 

 tliis because they are both water-animals with 

 necessities much the same. 



Now, the mark of reason is that it is endlessly 

 adaptive, that it can apply itself to all kinds of prob- 

 lems, that it can adapt old means to new ends, or 

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