220 Biological Controversy and its Laws . [April, 
sheep in successive lots of eleven, without ever committing 
an error. We are unable to see how even the most adroit 
sophist can explain away this case. Man, however, is very 
loth to yield his fancied superiority. If the actions of ani- 
mals can no longer be all explained by “ instindt,” surely 
some new name can be invented ! Words are very cheap, 
and if they signify nothing where is the harm ? Accordingly 
we have a new set of faculties, to which the actions of 
brutes maybe ascribed. We hear of “ gmzsf-intelligence,” 
“ ^m-mind,” and even of “ quasi- memory.” Perhaps we 
shall in due time be informed that when an animal is in 
need of food it feels “ quasi- hunger,” and that when over- 
driven it suffers from “quasi- fatigue.” Is it not gratuitous 
and unphilosophical in the extreme thus to multiply imagi- 
nary faculties ? If it can be positively proved, from fadts, 
that a dog remembers persons, places, or events by a totally 
different process and on totally different principles from what 
we ourselves do, then it will be time to talk of “ quasi - 
memory.” Until such proof is furnished it is a mere insult 
to our common sense. More than that, it is the reductio ad 
absurdum of all systems and first principles from which such 
a conclusion can be drawn. We trust that our physicists 
and chemists may not catch this infection, and treat us to 
gwzsf-magnetism, quasi- light, and ^^’-gravitation. 
It is suggested that a book should be written on the stu- 
pidity of animals. Such a work might then be very appro- 
priately followed up by a companion volume on the stupidity 
of mankind. We fear that the latter, if fairly compiled, 
would prove the bulkier of the two. We are told that an 
elephant at the Zoological Gardens, finding the end of its 
trunk entangled in a ring, pulled till it tore off the extremity 
of its own member ; but we know of a man who, in pruning 
his orchard, deliberately and neatly sawed away the branch 
against which his ladder was leaning, and fell to the ground 
with great violence. His name was Ferdinand Hilthel, and 
he lived not fifteen miles from Goerlitz. Yet on the strength 
of such negative cases we should not be justified in pro- 
nouncing man irrational. Why then should such an infer- 
ence be drawn from the occasional, or even frequent, stupidity 
of the lower animals ? 
As a proof of animal irrationality it is said that a dog has 
been known, in a sudden broil, to fly at his master. We do 
not in the least dispute it, for we have seen very similar 
blunders committed by man ! We witnessed an instance 
where a gentleman, in the confusion consequent upon a 
railway-train arriving much behind its time at a crowded 
