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VI. — Animated Nature, 
What, then, is the natu7'e of the animal creation ? In how 
far is the essential identity of each creature fixed ? In how 
far liable to inherent change ? In how far modified by cir- 
cumstances? Is there any such thing as species, or is all 
nature in a continual flux, the sport of chance ? Or are the 
creatures, man included, all improving themselves (excepting 
those myriads of types which are improved off creation), and 
all tending towards perfection ? 
I may venture to say that we are not yet prepared with 
answers to these and many other questions. May I add that 
our knowledge of inanimate nature in chemistry is much more 
demonstrably perfect than that of animated nature. 
We do not knoiu what is natural. How, then, can we dis- 
tinguish what is supernatural ? 
The following comes to hand whilst I am writing, as an 
appropriate illustration of my meaning : — 
“ Intelligence in Animals.— Some years ago "my father, who was a 
medical practitioner in Somersetshire, had a valuable horse, which eventually 
he was obliged to part with, as it was vicious, and not always safe to drive. 
During the time my father drove it, he had occasion to visit daily for several 
weeks an old gentleman who had met with a serious accident. His patient 
lived at the bottom of a steep lane, which branched off at right angles from 
the main road. This horse was always used for visiting this patient, and 
during the first two or three weeks, when there were dangerous symptoms, 
was frequently driven down the lane twice a day. 
“ The farmer to whom my father sold this horse lived at a distance of several 
miles beyond this turning on the same road, attended regularly the market 
in the town where my father lived, and necessarily passed this sharp turning 
both going and returning therefrom. Some three or four years after pur- 
chasing this horse, he had occasion to drive into the town to fetch my father 
to attend his wife. As the case was urgent, he got into the gig, and was 
driven by the farmer towards the farm where he lived. Suddenly, without 
the slightest warning, the horse turned down the lane he knew so well, nearly 
capsizing them. 
“ As soon as they had recovered themselves, the farmer exclaimed that ‘ he 
had never known the horse do such a thing before all the years he had had 
it.’ My father was surprised, and said, ‘ Not when you have driven this way 
to and from the market ? ’ The farmer replied, ‘ That .the horse never even 
so much as looked at the turning, whilst he had driven it until now.’ ‘ Well,’ 
said my father, ‘ he must associate me, knowing that I am in this gig, with 
the many visits he used to pay with me down that lane, when I attended 
my poor old patient at the bottom, after his accident. I patted his nose be- 
fore starting, and he knows by my voice that I am behind him. His memory 
has served him well, and he concluded that I must be going the same journey 
we performed together so many years ago.’ My father always considered 
this fact evidence of reasoning powers in the horse, and although I incline to 
the same opinion, I will not comment upon it, but content myself with simply 
relating this anecdote. Nov, 19, 1881.”— A. H., in Knoivledge, 
