This is one out of various tales of this kind that could be told. The elephant here learned by the good done to one eye that he was going to be helped with the other, and made up his mind to bear the pain for the good it would bring him.
Not many animals can learn things without being taught, but the elephant can. One thing a tamed elephant is taught to do is to pick up things from the ground and hand them to the driver on his shoulders. At first he is made to pick up only soft articles, for he is apt to throw them up with force and might hurt the man above.
After a time the animal gets to notice the difference between soft things and hard things. A bundle of clothes may still be thrown up with force, but a hard and heavy thing, such as a piece of iron chain, will be handed up gently. The wise creature learns in time to pick up a sharp knife by its handle and lay it on his head so that the driver can also take it up by the handle, and when made to pick up things it has never seen before it shows that it knows how to deal with them.
We might go on and give many other examples of the mental powers of the elephant, but enough have been given to show that this great creature is one of the most sensible of all beasts and is as quick at learning the best way to do things as any others of the animal tribe. And it can think out things for itself, which shows finer thought than to have them taught it by others.
IV
ANIMALS USED FOR FOOD AND CLOTHING
When we think of the many things man does with the animals he has tamed, the first that comes into our minds is their use in hunting and as house guards and pets. But we must not forget how useful they are as workers, in the fields and in the roads, in war and in peace. For long ages they were the only helpers that men had in work and travel. Only within our own times have we found out how to put the forces of nature at work for us and how much stronger those are than any animals. The animals kept by us have one value for which the forces of nature can never serve. That is their value for food. While we can use the power of the winds and of coal and iron in doing work, we cannot feed upon these or anything of this kind. To live we must have food, and this we can get only from the world of plants and animals. We also use the skins and furs of animals for clothing, and weave warm cloths out of their wool and hair. These are the things I now propose to talk about.