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The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Page 89 of 825, printed 89

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 intelligent dogs I ever knew. But the higher animals differ in exactly the same way in this power of association from those low in the scale, such as the pike, as well as in that of drawing inferences and of observation. The promptings of reason, after very short experience, are well shewn by the following actions of American monkeys, which stand low in their order. Rengger, a most careful observer, states that when he first gave eggs to his monkeys in Paraguay, they smashed them, and thus lost much of their contents; afterwards they gently hit one end against some hard body, and picked off the bits of shell with their fingers. After cutting themselves only ONCE with any sharp tool, they would not touch it again, or would handle it with the greatest caution. Lumps of sugar were often given them wrapped up in paper; and Rengger sometimes put a live wasp in the paper, so that in hastily unfolding it they got stung; after this had ONCE happened, they always first held the packet to their ears to detect any movement within. (26. Mr. Belt, in his most interesting work, The Naturalist in Nicaragua, 1874, (p. 119), likewise describes various actions of a tamed Cebus, which, I think, clearly shew that this animal possessed some reasoning power.) The following cases relate to dogs. Mr. Colquhoun (27. The Moor and the Loch, p. 45. Col. Hutchinson on Dog Breaking, 1850, p. 46.) winged two wild-ducks, which fell on the further side of a stream; his 89
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