[45] Ibid., p. 39.
[46] Ibid., p. 30. In the present connection, also, I may refer to the chapter on Imagination in my previous work, where sundry illustrations are given of this faculty as it occurs in animals; for wherever imagination leads to appropriate action, there is evidence of a Logic of Recepts, which in the higher levels of imagination, characteristic of man, passes into a Logic of Concepts.
Since publishing the chapter just alluded to, I have received an additional and curious illustration of the imaginative faculty in animals, which I think deserves to be published for its own sake. Of course we may see in a general way that dogs and cats resemble children in their play of “pretending” that inanimate objects are alive, and this betokens a comparatively high level of the imaginative faculty. The case which I am about to quote, however, appears to show that this kind of imaginative play may extend in animals, as in children, to the still higher level of not only pretending that inanimate objects are alive, but of “peopling space with fancy’s airy forms.” I shall quote the facts in the words of my correspondent, who is Miss Bramston, the authoress.
“Watch is a collie dog belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury; but lives with me a good deal, as Lambeth does not suit him. He is a very remarkable dog in many ways, which I will not inflict on you. He is very intelligent, understands many words, and can perform tricks. What I mention him for, however, is that he is the only dog I ever met with a dramatic faculty. His favourite drama is chasing imaginary pigs. He used now and then to be sent to chase real pigs out of the field, and after a time it became a custom for Miss Benson to open the door for him after dinner in the evening, and say, ‘Pigs!’ when he always ran about, wildly chasing imaginary pigs. If no one opened the door, he went to it himself wagging his tail, asking for his customary drama. He now reaches a further stage, for as soon as we get up after our last meal he begins to bark violently, and if the door is open he rushes out to chase imaginary pigs with no one saying the word ‘pigs’ at all. He usually used to be sent out to chase pigs after prayers in the evening, and when he came to my small house it was amusing to see that he recognized the function of prayers, performed with totally different accompaniments, to be the same as prayers performed in an episcopal chapel, so far as he expected ‘Pigs’ to be the end of both. The word ‘Pigs,’ uttered in any tone, will always set him off playing the same drama.”
[47] Ibid., pp. 125, 126.
[48] Professor Preyer has ascertained experimentally the number of objects (such as shot-corns, pins, or dots on a piece of paper), which admit of being simultaneously estimated with accuracy. (Sitzungs berichten der Gesellschaft für Medicin und Naturwissenshaft, 29 Juli, 1881.) The number admits of being largely increased by practice, until, with an exposure to view of one second’s duration, the estimate admits of being correctly made up to between twenty and thirty objects. (See also Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 138.)
[49] Lessons from Nature, pp. 219, 220.
[50] See Animal Intelligence, pp. 422-424.
[51] I may here observe that the earliest age in the infant at which I have observed such appreciation of causality to occur is during the sixth month. With my own children at that age I noticed that if I made a knocking sound with my concealed foot, they would look round and round the room with an obvious desire to ascertain the cause that was producing the sound. Compare, also, Mental Evolution in Animals, pp. 156-158, on emotions aroused in brutes by sense of the mysterious—i.e. the unexplained.
[52] The reader is referred to the whole biography of this monkey (Animal Intelligence, pp. 484-498) for a number of other facts serving to show to how high a level of intelligent grouping—or of “logic”—recepts may attain without the aid of concepts. In the same connection I may refer to the chapter on “Imagination” in Mental Evolution in Animals, and also to the following pages in Animal Intelligence:—128-40; 181-97, 219-222, 233, 311-335, 337, 338, 340, 348-352, 377-385, 397-410, 413-425, 426-436, 445-470, 478-498.