Intelligence
We find little mention of insanity in the domesticated animals in any of our modern authors, whether treating on agriculture, horsemanship, or veterinary medicine, and yet there are some singular and very interesting cases of aberration of intellect. The inferior animals are, to a certain extent, endowed with the same faculties as ourselves. They are even susceptible of the same moral qualities. Hatred, love, fear, hope, joy, distress, courage, timidity, jealousy, and many varied passions influence and agitate them, as they do the human being. The dog is an illustration of this — the most susceptible to every impression — approaching the nearest to man in his instincts, and in many actions that surprise the philosopher, who justly appreciates it.
What eagerness to bite is often displayed by the dog when labouring under enteritis, and especially by him who has imbibed the poison of rabies! How singular is the less dangerous malady which induces the horse and the dog to press unconsciously forward under the influence of vertigo! — the eagerness with which, when labouring under phrenitis, he strikes at everything with his foot, or rushes upon it to seize it with his teeth! A kind of nostalgia is often recognised in that depression which nothing can dissipate, and the invincible aversion to food, by means of which many animals perish, who are prevented from returning to the place where they once lived, and the localities to which they had been accustomed.
These are circumstances proving that the dog is endowed with intelligence and with affections like ours; and, if they do not equal ours, they are of the same character.
With regard to the foundation of intellectual power, viz.:
, memory, association, and imagination, the difference between man and animals is in degree, and not in kind. Thus stands the account, — with the quadruped as well as the biped, — the impression is made on the mind; attention fixes it there; memory recurs to it; imagination combines it, rightly or erroneously, with many other impressions; judgment determines the value of it, and the conclusions that are to be drawn from it, if not with logical precision, yet with sufficient accuracy for every practical purpose.
bitch, naturally ill-tempered, and that would not suffer a stranger to touch her, had scirrhous enlargement on one of her teats. As she lay in the lap of her mistress, an attempt was repeatedly made to examine the tumour, in spite of many desperate attempts on her part to bite. All at once, however, something seemed to strike her mind. She whined, wagged her tail, and sprung from the lap of her mistress to the ground. It was to crouch at the feet of the surgeon, and to lay herself down and expose the tumour to his inspection. She submitted to a somewhat painful examination of it, and to a far more serious operation afterwards. Some years passed away, and whenever she saw the operator, she testified her joy and her gratitude in the most expressive and endearing manner.