capacity of performing such actions has been gained, step by step, through
the variability of the mental organs and natural selection, without any
conscious intelligence on the part of the animal during each successive
generation. No doubt, as Mr. Wallace has argued (5. 'Contributions to the
Theory of Natural Selection,' 1870, p. 212.), much of the intelligent work
done by man is due to imitation and not to reason; but there is this great
difference between his actions and many of those performed by the lower
animals, namely, that man cannot, on his first trial, make, for instance, a
stone hatchet or a canoe, through his power of imitation. He has to learn
his work by practice; a beaver, on the other hand, can make its dam or
canal, and a bird its nest, as well, or nearly as well, and a spider its
wonderful web, quite as well (6. For the evidence on this head, see Mr. J.
Traherne Moggridge's most interesting work, 'Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door
Spiders,' 1873, pp. 126, 128.), the first time it tries as when old and
experienced.

To return to our immediate subject: the lower animals, like man,
manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is
never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens,
lambs, etc., when playing together, like our own children. Even insects
play together, as has been described by that excellent observer, P. Huber
(7. 'Recherches sur les Moeurs des Fourmis,' 1810, p. 173.), who saw ants
chasing and pretending to bite each other, like so many puppies.

The fact that the lower animals are excited by the same emotions as
ourselves is so well established, that it will not be necessary to weary
the reader by many details. Terror acts in the same manner on them as on
us, causing the muscles to tremble, the heart to palpitate, the sphincters
to be relaxed, and the hair to stand on end. Suspicion, the offspring of
fear, is eminently characteristic of most wild animals. It is, I think,
impossible to read the account given by Sir E. Tennent, of the behaviour of
the female elephants, used as decoys, without admitting that they
intentionally practise deceit, and well know what they are about. Courage
and timidity are extremely variable qualities in the individuals of the
same species, as is plainly seen in our dogs. Some dogs and horses are
ill-tempered, and easily turn sulky; others are good-tempered; and these
qualities are certainly inherited. Every one knows how liable animals are
to furious rage, and how plainly they shew it. Many, and probably true,
anecdotes have been published on the long-delayed and artful revenge of
various animals. The accurate Rengger, and Brehm (8. All the following
statements, given on the authority of these two naturalists, are taken from
Rengger's 'Naturgesch. der Saugethiere von Paraguay,' 1830, s. 41-57, and
from Brehm's 'Thierleben,' B. i. s. 10-87.) state that the American and
African monkeys which they kept tame, certainly revenged themselves. Sir
Andrew Smith, a zoologist whose scrupulous accuracy was known to many
persons, told me the following story of which he was himself an eye-
witness; at the Cape of Good Hope an officer had often plagued a certain
baboon, and the animal, seeing him approaching one Sunday for parade,
poured water into a hole and hastily made some thick mud, which he
skilfully dashed over the officer as he passed by, to the amusement of many
bystanders. For long afterwards the baboon rejoiced and triumphed whenever
he saw his victim.

The love of a dog for his master is notorious; as an old writer quaintly
says (9. Quoted by Dr. Lauder Lindsay, in his 'Physiology of Mind in the
Lower Animals,' 'Journal of Mental Science,' April 1871, p. 38.), "A dog is
the only thing on this earth that luvs you more than he luvs himself."

In the agony of death a dog has been known to caress his master, and every
one has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand
of the operator; this man, unless the operation was fully justified by an
increase of our knowledge, or unless he had a heart of stone, must have
felt remorse to the last hour of his life.

As Whewell (10. 'Bridgewater Treatise,' p. 263.) has well asked, "who that
reads the touching instances of maternal affection, related so often of the
women of all nations, and of the females of all animals, can doubt that the
principle of action is the same in the two cases?" We see maternal
affection exhibited in the most trifling details; thus Rengger observed an
American monkey (a Cebus) carefully driving away the flies which plagued
her infant; and Duvaucel saw a Hylobates washing the faces of her young
ones in a stream. So intense is the grief of female monkeys for the loss
of their young, that it invariably caused the death of certain kinds kept
under confinement by Brehm in N. Africa. Orphan monkeys were always
adopted and carefully guarded by the other monkeys, both males and females.
One female baboon had so capacious a heart that she not only adopted young
monkeys of other species, but stole young dogs and cats, which she
continually carried about. Her kindness, however, did not go so far as to
share her food with her adopted offspring, at which Brehm was surprised, as
his monkeys always divided everything quite fairly with their own young
ones. An adopted kitten scratched this affectionate baboon, who certainly
had a fine intellect, for she was much astonished at being scratched, and
immediately examined the kitten's feet, and without more ado bit off the
claws. (11. A critic, without any grounds ('Quarterly Review,' July 1871,
p. 72), disputes the possibility of this act as described by Brehm, for the
sake of discrediting my work. Therefore I tried, and found that I could
readily seize with my own teeth the sharp little claws of a kitten nearly
five weeks old.) In the Zoological Gardens, I heard from the keeper that
an old baboon (C. chacma) had adopted a Rhesus monkey; but when a young
drill and mandrill were placed in the cage, she seemed to perceive that
these monkeys, though distinct species, were her nearer relatives, for she
at once rejected the Rhesus and adopted both of them. The young Rhesus, as
I saw, was greatly discontented at being thus rejected, and it would, like
a naughty child, annoy and attack the young drill and mandrill whenever it
could do so with safety; this conduct exciting great indignation in the old
baboon. Monkeys will also, according to Brehm, defend their master when
attacked by any one, as well as dogs to whom they are attached, from the
attacks of other dogs. But we here trench on the subjects of sympathy and
fidelity, to which I shall recur. Some of Brehm's monkeys took much
delight in teasing a certain old dog whom they disliked, as well as other
animals, in various ingenious ways.

Most of the more complex emotions are common to the higher animals and
ourselves. Every one has seen how jealous a dog is of his master's
affection, if lavished on any other creature; and I have observed the same
fact with monkeys. This shews that animals not only love, but have desire
to be loved. Animals manifestly feel emulation. They love approbation or
praise; and a dog carrying a basket for his master exhibits in a high
degree self-complacency or pride. There can, I think, be no doubt that a
dog feels shame, as distinct from fear, and something very like modesty
when begging too often for food. A great dog scorns the snarling of a
little dog, and this may be called magnanimity. Several observers have
stated that monkeys certainly dislike being laughed at; and they sometimes
invent imaginary offences. In the Zoological Gardens I saw a baboon who
always got into a furious rage when his keeper took out a letter or book
and read it aloud to him; and his rage was so violent that, as I witnessed
on one occasion, he bit his own leg till the blood flowed. Dogs shew what
may be fairly called a sense of humour, as distinct from mere play; if a
bit of stick or other such object be thrown to one, he will often carry it
away for a short distance; and then squatting down with it on the ground
close before him, will wait until his master comes quite close to take it
away. The dog will then seize it and rush away in triumph, repeating the
same manoeuvre, and evidently enjoying the practical joke.

We will now turn to the more intellectual emotions and faculties, which are
very important, as forming the basis for the development of the higher
mental powers. Animals manifestly enjoy excitement, and suffer from ennui,
as may be seen with dogs, and, according to Rengger, with monkeys. All
animals feel WONDER, and many exhibit CURIOSITY. They sometimes suffer
from this latter quality, as when the hunter plays antics and thus attracts
them; I have witnessed this with deer, and so it is with the wary chamois,
and with some kinds of wild-ducks. Brehm gives a curious account of the
instinctive dread, which his monkeys exhibited, for snakes; but their
curiosity was so great that they could not desist from occasionally
satiating their horror in a most human fashion, by lifting up the lid of
the box in which the snakes were kept. I was so much surprised at his
account, that I took a stuffed and coiled-up snake into the monkey-house at
the Zoological Gardens, and the excitement thus caused was one of the most
curious spectacles which I ever beheld. Three species of Cercopithecus
were the most alarmed; they dashed about their cages, and uttered sharp
signal cries of danger, which were understood by the other monkeys. A few
young monkeys and one old Anubis baboon alone took no notice of the snake.
I then placed the stuffed specimen on the ground in one of the larger
compartments. After a time all the monkeys collected round it in a large
circle, and staring intently, presented a most ludicrous appearance. They
became extremely nervous; so that when a wooden ball, with which they were
familiar as a plaything, was accidentally moved in the straw, under which
it was partly hidden, they all instantly started away. These monkeys
behaved very differently when a dead fish, a mouse (12. I have given a
short account of their behaviour on this occasion in my 'Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals,' p. 43.), a living turtle, and other new
objects were placed in their cages; for though at first frightened, they
soon approached, handled and examined them. I then placed a live snake in
a paper bag, with the mouth loosely closed, in one of the larger
compartments. One of the monkeys immediately approached, cautiously opened
the bag a little, peeped in, and instantly dashed away. Then I witnessed
what Brehm has described, for monkey after monkey, with head raised high
and turned on one side, could not resist taking a momentary peep into the
upright bag, at the dreadful object lying quietly at the bottom. It would
almost appear as if monkeys had some notion of zoological affinities, for
those kept by Brehm exhibited a strange, though mistaken, instinctive dread
of innocent lizards and frogs. An orang, also, has been known to be much
alarmed at the first sight of a turtle. (13. W.C.L. Martin, 'Natural
History of Mammalia,' 1841, p. 405.)

The principle of IMITATION is strong in man, and especially, as I have
myself observed, with savages. In certain morbid states of the brain this
tendency is exaggerated to an extraordinary degree: some hemiplegic
patients and others, at the commencement of inflammatory softening of the
brain, unconsciously imitate every word which is uttered, whether in their
own or in a foreign language, and every gesture or action which is
performed near them. (14. Dr. Bateman, 'On Aphasia,' 1870, p. 110.)
Desor (15. Quoted by Vogt, 'Memoire sur les Microcephales,' 1867, p. 168.)
has remarked that no animal voluntarily imitates an action performed by
man, until in the ascending scale we come to monkeys, which are well known
to be ridiculous mockers. Animals, however, sometimes imitate each other's
actions: thus two species of wolves, which had been reared by dogs,
learned to bark, as does sometimes the jackal (16. The 'Variation of
Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. i. p. 27.), but whether this
can be called voluntary imitation is another question. Birds imitate the
songs of their parents, and sometimes of other birds; and parrots are
notorious imitators of any sound which they often hear. Dureau de la Malle
gives an account (17. 'Annales des Sciences Nat.' (1st Series), tom. xxii.
p. 397.) of a dog reared by a cat, who learnt to imitate the well-known
action of a cat licking her paws, and thus washing her ears and face; this
was also witnessed by the celebrated naturalist Audouin. I have received
several confirmatory accounts; in one of these, a dog had not been suckled
by a cat, but had been brought up with one, together with kittens, and had
thus acquired the above habit, which he ever afterwards practised during
his life of thirteen years. Dureau de la Malle's dog likewise learnt from
the kittens to play with a ball by rolling it about with his fore paws, and
springing on it. A correspondent assures me that a cat in his house used
to put her paws into jugs of milk having too narrow a mouth for her head.
A kitten of this cat soon learned the same trick, and practised it ever
afterwards, whenever there was an opportunity.

The parents of many animals, trusting to the principle of imitation in
their young, and more especially to their instinctive or inherited
tendencies, may be said to educate them. We see this when a cat brings a
live mouse to her kittens; and Dureau de la Malle has given a curious
account (in the paper above quoted) of his observations on hawks which
taught their young dexterity, as well as judgment of distances, by first
dropping through the air dead mice and sparrows, which the young generally
failed to catch, and then bringing them live birds and letting them loose.

Hardly any faculty is more important for the intellectual progress of man
than ATTENTION. Animals clearly manifest this power, as when a cat watches
by a hole and prepares to spring on its prey. Wild animals sometimes
become so absorbed when thus engaged, that they may be easily approached.
Mr. Bartlett has given me a curious proof how variable this faculty is in
monkeys. A man who trains monkeys to act in plays, used to purchase common
kinds from the Zoological Society at the price of five pounds for each; but
he offered to give double the price, if he might keep three or four of them
for a few days, in order to select one. When asked how he could possibly
learn so soon, whether a particular monkey would turn out a good actor, he
answered that it all depended on their power of attention. If when he was
talking and explaining anything to a monkey, its attention was easily
distracted, as by a fly on the wall or other trifling object, the case was
hopeless. If he tried by punishment to make an inattentive monkey act, it
turned sulky. On the other hand, a monkey which carefully attended to him
could always be trained.

It is almost superfluous to state that animals have excellent MEMORIES for
persons and places. A baboon at the Cape of Good Hope, as I have been
informed by Sir Andrew Smith, recognised him with joy after an absence of
nine months. I had a dog who was savage and averse to all strangers, and I
purposely tried his memory after an absence of five years and two days. I
went near the stable where he lived, and shouted to him in my old manner;
he shewed no joy, but instantly followed me out walking, and obeyed me,
exactly as if I had parted with him only half an hour before. A train of
old associations, dormant during five years, had thus been instantaneously
awakened in his mind. Even ants, as P. Huber (18. 'Les Moeurs des
Fourmis,' 1810, p. 150.) has clearly shewn, recognised their fellow-ants
belonging to the same community after a separation of four months. Animals
can certainly by some means judge of the intervals of time between
recurrent events.

The IMAGINATION is one of the highest prerogatives of man. By this faculty
he unites former images and ideas, independently of the will, and thus
creates brilliant and novel results. A poet, as Jean Paul Richter remarks
(19. Quoted in Dr. Maudsley's 'Physiology and Pathology of Mind,' 1868,
pp. 19, 220.), "who must reflect whether he shall make a character say yes
or no - to the devil with him; he is only a stupid corpse." Dreaming gives
us the best notion of this power; as Jean Paul again says, "The dream is an
involuntary art of poetry." The value of the products of our imagination
depends of course on the number, accuracy, and clearness of our
impressions, on our judgment and taste in selecting or rejecting the
involuntary combinations, and to a certain extent on our power of
voluntarily combining them. As dogs, cats, horses, and probably all the
higher animals, even birds (20. Dr. Jerdon, 'Birds of India,' vol. i.
1862, p. xxi. Houzeau says that his parokeets and canary-birds dreamt:
'Etudes sur les Facultes Mentales des Animaux,' tom. ii. p. 136.) have
vivid dreams, and this is shewn by their movements and the sounds uttered,
we must admit that they possess some power of imagination. There must be
something special, which causes dogs to howl in the night, and especially
during moonlight, in that remarkable and melancholy manner called baying.
All dogs do not do so; and, according to Houzeau (21. ibid. 1872, tom. ii.
p. 181.), they do not then look at the moon, but at some fixed point near
the horizon. Houzeau thinks that their imaginations are disturbed by the
vague outlines of the surrounding objects, and conjure up before them
fantastic images: if this be so, their feelings may almost be called
superstitious.

Of all the faculties of the human mind, it will, I presume, be admitted
that REASON stands at the summit. Only a few persons now dispute that
animals possess some power of reasoning. Animals may constantly be seen to
pause, deliberate, and resolve. It is a significant fact, that the more
the habits of any particular animal are studied by a naturalist, the more
he attributes to reason and the less to unlearnt instincts. (22. Mr. L.H.
Morgan's work on 'The American Beaver,' 1868, offers a good illustration of
this remark. I cannot help thinking, however, that he goes too far in
underrating the power of instinct.) In future chapters we shall see that
some animals extremely low in the scale apparently display a certain amount
of reason. No doubt it is often difficult to distinguish between the power
of reason and that of instinct. For instance, Dr. Hayes, in his work on
'The Open Polar Sea,' repeatedly remarks that his dogs, instead of
continuing to draw the sledges in a compact body, diverged and separated
when they came to thin ice, so that their weight might be more evenly
distributed. This was often the first warning which the travellers
received that the ice was becoming thin and dangerous. Now, did the dogs
act thus from the experience of each individual, or from the example of the
older and wiser dogs, or from an inherited habit, that is from instinct?
This instinct, may possibly have arisen since the time, long ago, when dogs
were first employed by the natives in drawing their sledges; or the Arctic
wolves, the parent-stock of the Esquimaux dog, may have acquired an
instinct impelling them not to attack their prey in a close pack, when on
thin ice.

We can only judge by the circumstances under which actions are performed,
whether they are due to instinct, or to reason, or to the mere association
of ideas: this latter principle, however, is intimately connected with
reason. A curious case has been given by Prof. Mobius (23. 'Die
Bewegungen der Thiere,' etc., 1873, p. 11.), of a pike, separated by a
plate of glass from an adjoining aquarium stocked with fish, and who often
dashed himself with such violence against the glass in trying to catch the
other fishes, that he was sometimes completely stunned. The pike went on
thus for three months, but at last learnt caution, and ceased to do so.
The plate of glass was then removed, but the pike would not attack these
particular fishes, though he would devour others which were afterwards
introduced; so strongly was the idea of a violent shock associated in his
feeble mind with the attempt on his former neighbours. If a savage, who
had never seen a large plate-glass window, were to dash himself even once
against it, he would for a long time afterwards associate a shock with a
window-frame; but very differently from the pike, he would probably reflect
on the nature of the impediment, and be cautious under analogous
circumstances. Now with monkeys, as we shall presently see, a painful or
merely a disagreeable impression, from an action once performed, is
sometimes sufficient to prevent the animal from repeating it. If we
attribute this difference between the monkey and the pike solely to the
association of ideas being so much stronger and more persistent in the one
than the other, though the pike often received much the more severe injury,
can we maintain in the case of man that a similar difference implies the
possession of a fundamentally different mind?

Houzeau relates (24. 'Etudes sur les Facultes Mentales des Animaux,' 1872,
tom. ii. p. 265.) that, whilst crossing a wide and arid plain in Texas, his
two dogs suffered greatly from thirst, and that between thirty and forty
times they rushed down the hollows to search for water. These hollows were
not valleys, and there were no trees in them, or any other difference in
the vegetation, and as they were absolutely dry there could have been no
smell of damp earth. The dogs behaved as if they knew that a dip in the
ground offered them the best chance of finding water, and Houzeau has often
witnessed the same behaviour in other animals.

I have seen, as I daresay have others, that when a small object is thrown
on the ground beyond the reach of one of the elephants in the Zoological
Gardens, he blows through his trunk on the ground beyond the object, so
that the current reflected on all sides may drive the object within his
reach. Again a well-known ethnologist, Mr. Westropp, informs me that he
observed in Vienna a bear deliberately making with his paw a current in
some water, which was close to the bars of his cage, so as to draw a piece
of floating bread within his reach. These actions of the elephant and bear
can hardly be attributed to instinct or inherited habit, as they would be
of little use to an animal in a state of nature. Now, what is the
difference between such actions, when performed by an uncultivated man, and
by one of the higher animals?

The savage and the dog have often found water at a low level, and the
coincidence under such circumstances has become associated in their minds.
A cultivated man would perhaps make some general proposition on the
subject; but from all that we know of savages it is extremely doubtful
whether they would do so, and a dog certainly would not. But a savage, as
well as a dog, would search in the same way, though frequently
disappointed; and in both it seems to be equally an act of reason, whether
or not any general proposition on the subject is consciously placed before
the mind. (25. Prof. Huxley has analysed with admirable clearness the
mental steps by which a man, as well as a dog, arrives at a conclusion in a
case analogous to that given in my text. See his article, 'Mr. Darwin's
Critics,' in the 'Contemporary Review,' Nov. 1871, p. 462, and in his
'Critiques and Essays,' 1873, p. 279.) The same would apply to the
elephant and the bear making currents in the air or water. The savage
would certainly neither know nor care by what law the desired movements
were effected; yet his act would be guided by a rude process of reasoning,
as surely as would a philosopher in his longest chain of deductions. There
would no doubt be this difference between him and one of the higher
animals, that he would take notice of much slighter circumstances and
conditions, and would observe any connection between them after much less
experience, and this would be of paramount importance. I kept a daily
record of the actions of one of my infants, and when he was about eleven
months old, and before he could speak a single word, I was continually
struck with the greater quickness, with which all sorts of objects and
sounds were associated together in his mind, compared with that of the most