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 tho rampart’s 
verge. The actious were not the results of education, of 
habits induced by training. Neither were they, or any of 
them, marked by “ unerring certainty in tho means,” or 
“ uniformity in the results,” nor can it be said that they 
were “performed independently of all experience;” they 
differed in tolo 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 1 
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 
says, belonged to his grandfather, and was in the habit of 
trudging two miles every Saturday to cater for himself in 
the shambles. “ I know,” he adds, “ a more extraordinary 
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