i88 3 .] 
Canine Intelligence. 
737 
inexplicable on natural grounds. It may be, however, 
that M. Cyon’s researches on the “ semicircular canals,” 
which he regards as the organs of this “ sense of space,” 
as he terms it, will throw more light on this subject. 
Bui though instindts may be regarded as inherited habits, 
we must not suppose that they are in all cases habits 
intelligently acquired. On the other hand, I presume that 
in every case of instindt Natural Seledtion has been a 
more or less important fadtor. Or perhaps we may rather 
say that, with the aid of intelligence or without that aid, 
all instindts have been formed under the guidance of 
Natural Seledtion, such habits as were for the good of the 
species crystallising, or rather organising, into instindts ; 
such as were detrimental quietly dying out. Or, again, we 
may say that these insedts have been formed under the 
more general influence of the uniformity of Nature. Let 
me not be misunderstood here. The conception of the 
uniformity of Nature is one of late development, and is 
obviously impossible to the animal under any circum- 
stances ; but the influence of the uniformity of Nature is 
dominant in every mental, as it is in every physical, 
process, — mind being throughout its development moulded 
in conformity with an orderly external sequence of events. 
In an animal which has been so long under domestica- 
tion as the dog, instindts originally acquired under the 
guidance of Natural Seledtion may be more or less com- 
pletely replaced by instindts formed under the guidance of 
Artificial Seledtion. Pointing, retrieving, shepherding, may 
be said to be instindtive in certain breeds of dog. These 
adtions have not now to be learnt. They come natural 
to the dogs. And they are not only different from, but 
they are diametrically opposed to, the natural instindts of 
the canine race. 
This modifiability of instindt by artificial seledtion is a 
fadt of the highest importance. It means nothing less 
than the alteration of the whole charadter. The sheep- 
dog, whose ancestral instindts would prompt him to single 
out a sheep and pull it down, finds his pleasure in guarding 
the flock and keeping it together. What was before 
pleasurable becomes distasteful ; pleasure is associated with 
an altogether new mode of adtion. For pleasure and pain 
are the normal incentives to adtion ; and the whole com- 
plex process of Evolution has been accompanied by the 
association of pleasure with such adtions as tended to the 
preservation of the individual and the race, and the associ- 
ation of pain with such adtions as were harmful to the 
