The Spiritualist newspaper > No.313, August 23rd 1878

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successful in killing one fox, but never in killing a second ;
for the foxes afterwards adopted either of two devices whereby
to secure the bait without injuring themselves. One of these
devices was to bite through the string at its exposed part
near the trigger, and the other device was to burrow up to
the bait through the snow at right angles to the line of fire,
so that, although in this way they discharged the gun, they
escaped with perhaps only a pellet or two in the nose. Now
both of these devices exhibited a wonderful degree of what
I think must fairly be called power of reasoning. I have
carefully interrogated Dr. Rea on all the circumstances of
the case, and he tells me that in that part of the world traps
are never set with strings : so that there can have been no
special association in the fox’s mind between strings and
traps. Moreover, after the death of fox number one, the
track on the snow showed that fox number two, notwith¬
standing the temptation offered by the bait, had expended a
great deal of scientific observation on the gun before he under¬
took to sever the cord. Lastly, with regard to burrowing at
right angles to the line of fire, Dr. Rea justly deemed this
so extraordinary a circumstance, that he repeated the
experiment a number of times, in order to satisfy himself
that the direction of the burrowing was really to be attributed
to thought and not to chance.
THE EMOTIONAL LIFE OF ANIMALS.
I could give several other unequivocal instances of reason¬
ing on the part of animals which I have myself observed ;
but time does not permit of my stating them. Passing on,
therefore, to the emotional life of animals, we find that this
is very slightly, if at all, developed in the lower orders, but
remarkably well developed in the higher; that isi say, the
emotions are vivid and easily excited, although they are
shallow and evanescent. They thus differ from those of
most civilised men in being more readily aroused and more
impetuous while they last, though leaving behind them but
little trace of their occurrence. As regards the particular
emotions which occur among the higher animals, I can
affirm, from my^own observations, that all the following give
unmistakable tokens of their presence:—Fear, affection,
passionateness, pugnacity, jealousy, sympathy, pride, re¬
verence, emulation, shame, hate, curiosity, revenge, cruelty,
emotion of the ludicrous, and emotion of the beautiful.
Now this list includes nearly all the human emotions, except
those which refer to religion and to the perception of the
sublime. These, of course, are necessarily absent in animals,
because they depend upon ideas of too abstract a nature to
be reached by the mind when unaided by the logic of signs.
Time prevents me from here detailing any of my observa¬
tions or experiments with regard to the emotional life of
animals, so I will pass on at once to the faculty of Conscieuoe..
Of course the moral sense as it occurs in ourselves involves
ideas of high abstraction, so that in animals we cans only
expect to meet with a moral sense in a very rudimentary
form; and, therefore, even if it is true that no indications,
of such a sense are to be met with in animals, the fact would
not establish any difference in kind between animal intelli¬
gence and human. But I am inclined to believe that in
highly intelligent, highly sympathetic, and tolerably well-
treated animals, the germs of a moral sense become
apparent. To give two instances. I once shut up a Skye
terrier in a room by himself while I went to a friend’s house.
The dog must have been thrown into a violent passion at
being left behind, for when I returned I found that he had
torn the window-curtains to shreds. He was in great joy at
seeing me; but as soon as I picked up one of the torn
shreds of the curtains the animal gave a howl and ran
screaming up the staircase. Now this dog was never
chastised in his life, so that I can only explain his conduct
as an expression of the remorse which he sufiered at having
done in a passion what he knew would cause me annoyance.
So far as I can interpret the facts, his sympathetic affection
for me, coupled with the memory of his misdeeds, created
in his mind a genuine feeling of repentance.
The other instance I have to narrate occurred with the
same terrier. Only once in his life was he ever known te
steal; and on this occasion, when very hungry, he took a
cutlet from a table and carried it under a sofa. I saw him
perform this act of larceny, but pretended not to have done
Aim. 23, 1878.
ij so, and for a number of minutes he remained under the
sofa with his feelings of hunger struggling against his
I feelings of duty. At last the latter triumphed; for he
brought the stolen cutlet and laid it at my feet. Immedi-
{ ately after doing so he again ran under the sofa, and from
| this retreat no coaxing could draw him. Moreover, when I
| patted his head he turned away his face in a ludicrously
conscience-stricken manner. Now I regard this instance as
particularly valuable from the fact that the terrier in ques-
I tion had never been beaten, and hence that it cannot have
j been fear of bodily pain which prompted these actions. On
| the whole, therefore, I can only suppose that we have in
j these actions evidence of as high a development of the'
ethical faculty as is attainable by the logic of feelings when
unassisted by the logic of signs—that is to say, a grade very
j nearly, if not quite, as high as that with which we meet in
j low savages, young children, many idiots, and uneducated
deaf-mutes.
This allusion to savages, children, idiots, and deaf mutes,
leads me to the next division of my subject.
| THE INTELLECT OF THE HIGHER ANIMALS COMPARED WITH THE STUPIDITY
OF THE LOWER SAVAGES.
St. George Mivart has said that an interesting book might
be written on the stupidity of animals. I am inclined to think
■ that a still more interesting book might be written on the
stupidity of savages. For it is a matter of not the least interest
| how much stupidity any number of animals may present, so
long as some animals present sufficient sagacity to supply data
for the general theory of evolution; while, on the other
hand, it is of the utmost importance for the science of this
century to ascertain the lowest depths in which the mind of
man is known to exist as human. Now there is no doubt
that the interval which separates the most degraded savage
from the most intelligent animal is, psychologically con¬
sidered, enormous ; but, enormous as it is, I cannot see any
evidence to show that the gulf may not have been bridged
over during the countless ages of the past. Abstract ideas
among savages are mostly confined to such as may be formed
by the logic of feelings; so that, for instance, according to
the observations and the judgment of Mr. Francis Galton,
the ideas of number which are presented by the lowest
savages are certainly in no degree superior to those which
are presented by the higher animals. Such ideas as savages
possess seem to be mainly those which, as in animals, are
due to special associations. On this account there is in
them, as in animals, a remarkable tendency to act in accord¬
ance with performed habits, rather than to strike out
improved modes of action. On this account, also, there is,,
as in animals, a strong tendency to imitation as distinguished
from origination. Again, as in animals, so in savages, the -
reflective power is of an extremely undeveloped character,,
and quite incapable of sustained application. And, lastly,,
the emotions of savages, as of animals, are vivid, although,,
as contrasted with the emotions of civilised man, they arei
in a marked degree more fitful, impetuous, shallow, and
transitory. So that altogether I think the lowest savages;
supply us with a most valuable transition stage between
mind as we know it ourselves, and mind as we see it mani¬
fested by the higher animals.
INFANT PSYCHOLOGY.
With regard to children, it is to be expected, on the
general theory of evolution by inheritance, that if we were
attentively to study the order in which their mental faculties
develop, we should find that the historical sequence is, as it
were, a condensed epitome of the order in which these
faculties were developed during the evolution of the human
species. And this expectation is fairly well realised. Very
young children present only those lower faculties of mind
which in animals we call instincts. With advancing age,
the first indication of true intelligence seems to consist in
the power of forming special associations. , Memory thus
appears early in life ; and long before a child is able to
speak, it links together in thought ideas of objects which it
finds to be associated in fact. Again, the emotions begin
to assert their presence at a very early period, and attain a
high degree of development before any of the character¬
istically human faculties can be said to have appeared.
Moreover, in young children we meet with nearly all the
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