280 
THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL 
The power of keeping the mind steadily bent upon one purpose, is 
the grand secret of intellectual and moral improvement. 
Do we find this habit of attention in the brute? Yes, often, and 
to a very considerable degree. The cat sitting motionless, hour 
after hour, watching for prey ; the terrier, with every faculty in his 
eager watching for the vermin ; the sporting dog standing staunch 
to his point, however he may be annoyed by the blunders of his 
companion, or unskilfulness of his master; the fox hound, insen¬ 
sible to a thousand scents, deaf to every sound, while he anxiously 
and perseveringly picks out the track of his prey;—these are illus¬ 
trations of the power of attention—attention often wasted on 
trifles, but the foundation of all that is valuable. It is said that 
the staunch dogs of Captain Thornhill would remain fixed in their 
point long enough for the limner accurately to sketch their por¬ 
traits. 
The impression being received, and the mind having been em¬ 
ployed in the examination of it, what becomes of it ? It is trea¬ 
sured up in the storehouse of the mind, for future use, or boot¬ 
less would be the attention at first bestowed. This is the faculty 
of Memory. We all retain easily and long enough the recollection 
of that which has been unusually pleasing or annoying to us ; but 
the true art of memory consists in retaining a perfect conception 
of that which is useful. 
i 
No one can deny the power of memory in the brute, exerted 
with regard to trifles, and also with regard to that in particular 
in which the duty and service of brutes condescends to mingle and 
consists. A female elephant was lost, after having been in sub¬ 
jection and in training only two years. Fifteen years afterwards 
she was retaken ; she immediately recognized her former driver; 
“ he gave her his stick to hold, which she took with her trunk, and 
put into her mouth, and kept and returned it as she was directed, 
and as she formerly had been accustomed to do.” 
The horse never forgets a road that he has once travelled. A 
friend of ours had a very pleasing proof of this, as has been nar¬ 
rated in another publication. He had ridden thirty miles from 
home on a young horse which he had bred, and which had never 
before been in that part of the country. The road was difficult 
