baboons used to protect itself from the heat of the sun by throwing a
straw-mat over its head. In these several habits, we probably see the
first steps towards some of the simpler arts, such as rude architecture
and dress, as they arose amongst the early progenitors of man.
ABSTRACTION, GENERAL CONCEPTIONS, SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, MENTAL
INDIVIDUALITY.
It would be very difficult for any one with even much more knowledge
than I possess, to determine how far animals exhibit any traces of
these high mental powers. This difficulty arises from the impossibility
of judging what passes through the mind of an animal; and again, the
fact that writers differ to a great extent in the meaning which they
attribute to the above terms, causes a further difficulty. If one may
judge from various articles which have been published lately, the
greatest stress seems to be laid on the supposed entire absence in
animals of the power of abstraction, or of forming general concepts.
But when a dog sees another dog at a distance, it is often clear that
he perceives that it is a dog in the abstract; for when he gets nearer
his whole manner suddenly changes, if the other dog be a friend. A
recent writer remarks, that in all such cases it is a pure assumption
to assert that the mental act is not essentially of the same nature in
the animal as in man. If either refers what he perceives with his
senses to a mental concept, then so do both. (44. Mr. Hookham, in a
letter to Prof. Max Muller, in the Birmingham News, May 1873.) When I
say to my terrier, in an eager voice (and I have made the trial many
times), Hi, hi, where is it? she at once takes it as a sign that
something is to be hunted, and generally first looks quickly all
around, and then rushes into the nearest thicket, to scent for any
game, but finding nothing, she looks up into any neighbouring tree for
a squirrel. Now do not these actions clearly shew that she had in her
mind a general idea or concept that some animal is to be discovered and
hunted?
It may be freely admitted that no animal is self-conscious, if by this
term it is implied, that he reflects on such points, as whence he comes
or whither he will go, or what is life and death, and so forth. But how
can we feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory and some
power of imagination, as shewn by his dreams, never reflects on his
past pleasures or pains in the chase? And this would be a form of
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