Admitting this to be a rough outline of reasoning with its outcome action, we have a familiar example of this process displayed by members of the animal kingdom that are habitually brought into the society and companionship of man. Daily usage supplies experience, which, by the receptivity of ideas, constitutes a reasoning faculty, such as is constantly manifested in the actions of various animals, and which as much overrules mere instinct in them as it does in the higher animal man. For example, in my dog the predatory instinct is very strongly marked; but it daily passes and frequently enters butchers’ shops, sniffing under the carcases and joints for any scraps of meat, however small, yet never attempting to take advantage of a piece that is offered for sale. We have also frequently noticed, when driving on our rounds in a country practice, the horse would voluntarily slacken its speed as it approached the house of a patient, and scarcely require a check to draw up at the door. Why some human beings should betray a jealous disapproval of the recognition of reason in animals, seems to us utterly unaccountable. It is surely no insult to the Creator of all things if we grant the attribute of reasoning powers to His creatures; while it savours strongly of narrow and limited views of His beneficence to deny it.
It is the object of this paper to claim recognition and respect for the reasoning faculties of animals, particularly the class of domestic animals that are brought into daily intercourse with man. In them, more especially, we note habits of thought and traits of intelligence, apart from and above the mere prompting of instinct, that entitle them to our best consideration. But in the dog, as the friend of man, we shall naturally find the examples most ready to hand, not only of emotions akin to those of his master, but sentiments of honour, love, watchfulness, trust, duty, and obedience, courage, forbearance, self-denial, overcoming the mere instinct of hunger; also sensitiveness, shame, and jealousy, with self-devotion surpassing even the fear of death. In the horse, too, we find obedience, trust, eagerness to please, and affection. Even in cattle, we may notice attachment to home and persons, courage, patience, and docility.
We do not here propose to enter on a list of the attributes of reason to be observed in all animals; it is needless to relate the numberless authenticated instances recorded of elephants, tamed deer, gazelles, monkeys, and birds. To the thoughtful observer, proofs of intelligence and reflection, with experience, judgment, and conscientiousness are readily found, and even in the wild animals, as the rat, the fox, lions, and tigers, remarkable facts are recorded, which evidence powers of reflection and the exercise of judgment and reason. A lion, for instance, has been seen to drive away a cow from the herd, not rending it at once, but urging it by menaces, so as to secure its prey in a more convenient spot. Tigers watch in the jungle for the passing post-carriers, recognising their approach by the jingling sound of their ornaments, and knowing from experience that the wearers will afford them the necessary meal. The stories of foxes are legion; their cunning in eluding pursuit, and their prompt recognition of such chance advantages as the occasion may afford, evince a reasoning power beyond the mere impulse of instinct. Again, in rats, who has not witnessed countless proofs of intelligence, denoting forethought, prudence, and care, not only in their search for food, avoidance of snares, and concealment, but also exemplified in their mutual intercourse? A regimental officer once stationed at Aden described to the writer the skill of a party of rats in purloining every day the bread placed on the dinner-table. The servant who laid the table could not account for the disappearance of the several portions of bread placed ready beside the napkin and glasses, till, after watching some time, a small party of rats was seen to enter the room, and while some of them held the lower border of the table-cloth, another rapidly ascended, and mounting the table, dislodged the pieces of bread, which, falling off, were speedily appropriated by those below. The beaver has been often cited as exhibiting an almost human aptitude in the construction of dams and the formation of its lodge, and this appears more as the result of deductive reasoning, taught, no doubt, by experience, and transmitted by hereditary descent. In birds, the Corvidæ afford striking instances of the exercise of judgment and reflection, especially in the habits of rooks and ravens; we might add also magpies. But space prevents us from enlarging on this point.
The common wild bee constructs its nest in a mossy bank, and the comb is formed of rude circular cells arranged in a small group. The hive-bee, whose thickly peopled home affords but a limited space, constructs its comb of closely packed hexagonal cells, an arrangement which gives the greatest room for each cell in a circumscribed area. It accidentally occurred to the writer, many years since, to put aside a large box of pills closely packed, and left, without being opened, through the summer. When at last examined, it was found that the pills had become closely impacted together, and each individual pill was compressed in the form of a hexagon, remarkably resembling in outline the waxen cells of the hive-bee. The conduct of ants, in their communications by signalling to each other, evinces something more than blind instinct; otherwise, how can we explain the deliberate action which results from information conveyed by signals, and the plan of operations conducted on a scale beyond all relation to the size of the insignificant insects by which they are performed?
Mankind is too apt to monopolise the claim to reason, and allows to the lower animal world the gift of instinct as a kind of compromise; whereas, it has been abundantly shown that he shares also in the gift of instinct, and they likewise have a fair claim to the exercise of reason. There is nothing inconsistent in this view with the great plan of creation, for all classes of animals partake of the elements of the human frame in their general physical construction adapted to particular requirements, as anatomists have shown that man in his development from the ovum passes through the several grades of the animal kingdom by different homologies to the perfect human frame. And though in him reason assumes its highest condition, yet in the various types of his race there are as widely differing degrees of reasoning power, from the tree-dwelling tribes of Central India and the Lilliputian inhabitants of the forests of Borneo, to the highly educated and more amply endowed members of European and transatlantic society; and as, in the human race, reason exercises a paramount and prevailing sway, under which all other forces are subject, so instinct remains behind, still an element of humanity, though less conspicuous in the higher culture of civilisation than in the primitive savage, and more evident still in the lower animal world; though even here subjected to reasoning power, according, in a manner, to the amount of education and enlightenment received by these at the hand of man. Instinct belongs no more to the brute beast than to man, and reason is the heritage of both.
THE WILL OF MRS ANNE BOWDEN.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.
‘Tipsy!’ I muttered to myself with a scornful glance, and a strong feeling of disgust, as I hurriedly passed him by. Such would be, I suppose, the almost invariable exclamation of a young man whom circumstances combined with taste to keep in the path of strictest temperance, on seeing an elderly and prosperous-looking gentleman lurching unevenly along a street in the City between four and five o’clock one damp February afternoon. ‘Tipsy!’ I said, and passed on; yet, though so sad a spectacle had neither pleasure nor interest for me, I turned, after I had gone a few steps, to look once more at the supposed inebriate. That one glance showed me that my hasty judgment of his condition had been as unjust as it was uncharitable. That look of pain and distress, those starting eyes, the heavy beads of perspiration on the brow, were due not to intoxication, but to illness. As I looked at him, he stumbled, tottered on a step or two, and would have fallen, had I not, in two hasty strides, reached his side and caught him in my arms. A large envelope, apparently containing some heavy document, fell from his nerveless hand at the moment of his collapse. I picked it up, and hastily thrust it into the pocket of my overcoat, still supporting my helpless burden. The act was instinctive, almost unconscious, and no sooner done than forgotten; and the next moment my mind was wholly occupied with an appeal to one of the many young men who were hurrying by, as I myself had been, to catch the train at Broad Street, to expend a few minutes in calling a cab for me and the unfortunate man who had so suddenly become my charge.
I drove him to the nearest hospital, and left him there, stating in a few words the little I knew of his sudden attack, and the chance which had thrown him on my protection.
‘It is apoplexy,’ said the house-surgeon, in whose care I left him. ‘Doubtless, he is some speculator who has risked too much in a shaky Company, and whose head has given way under the shock of losing his money. We have cases like that here pretty often, especially in times of long-continued depression of trade. Will you wait and see if he has on him a visiting card or anything bearing his name and address?’