The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals | Page 5

that
frequently will be used in these pages.
THE ANIMAL BRAIN is the generator of the mind, and the clearing-
house of the senses. As a mechanism, the brain of man is the most
perfect, and in the descent through the mammals, birds, reptiles,
amphibians and fishes, the brain progressively is simplified in form and
function.
THOUGHT is the result of the various processes of the brain and
nervous system, stimulated by the contributions of the senses.
SANITY is the state of normal, orderly and balanced thought, as
formulated by a healthy brain.
INSANITY is a state of mental disease, resulting in disordered,
unbalanced and chaotic thought, destitute of reason.
REASON is the manifestation of correct observation and healthful
thought which recognizes both cause and effect, and leads from
premise to conclusion. INTELLIGENCE is created by the possession
of knowledge either inherited or acquired. It may be either latent or
active; and it is the forerunner of reason.
INSTINCT is the knowledge or impulse which animals or men derive

from their ancestors by inheritance, and which they obey, either
consciously or subconsciously in working out their own preservation,
increase and betterment. Instinct often functions as a sixth sense.
EDUCATION is the acquirement of knowledge by precept or by
observation; but animals as well as men may be self-taught, and
become self-educated, by the diligent exercise of the observing and
reasoning faculties. The adjustment of a wild animal mind to conditions
unknown to its ancestors is through the process of self-education, and
by logical reasoning from premise to conclusion.
The wild animal must think, or die.
Animal intelligence varies in quantity and quality as much as animals
vary in size. Idiots, maniacs and sleeping persons are the only classes
of human beings who are devoid of intelligence and reasoning power.
Idiots and maniacs also are often devoid of the common animal instinct
that ordinarily promotes self- preservation from fire, water and high
places. A heavily sleeping person is often so sodden in slumber that his
senses of smell and hearing are temporarily dead; and many a sleeping
man has been asphyxiated by gas or smoke, or burned to death, because
his deadened senses failed to arouse him at the critical moment. (This
dangerous condition of mind can be cured by efforts of the will,
exercised prior to sleep, through a determination resolutely to arouse
and investigate every unusual sensation that registers "danger" on any
one of the senses.) The normal individual sleeps with a subconscious
and sensitive mind, from which thought and reason have not been
entirely eliminated.
Every act of a man or animal, vertebrate or invertebrate, is based upon
either reason or _hereditary instinct._ It is a mistake to assume that
because an organism is small it necessarily has no "mind," and none of
the propelling impulse that we call thought. The largest whale may
have less intelligence and constructive reasoning than a trap-door
spider, a bee or an ant. To deny this is to deny the evidence of one's
senses.
A MEASURE FOR ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. The intelligence of
an animal may be estimated by taking into account, separately, its
mental qualities, about as follows:
1. General knowledge of surrounding conditions. 2. Powers of
independent observation and reasoning. 3. Memory. 4. Comprehension

under tuition. 5. Accuracy in the execution of man's orders.
Closely allied to these are the moral qualities which go to make up an
animal's temperament and disposition, about as follows:
1. Amiability, which guarantees security to its associates. 2. Patience,
or submission to discipline and training. 3. Courage, which gives
self-confidence and steadiness. 4. A disposition to obedience, with
cheerfulness.
All normal vertebrate animals exercise their intelligence in accordance
with their own rules of logic. Had they not been able to do so, it is
reasonable to suppose that they could never have developed into
vertebrates, reaching even up to man himself.
According to the laws of logic, this proposition is no more open to
doubt or dispute than is the existence of the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado. But few persons have seen the Canyon, and far fewer ever
have proven its existence by descending to its bottom; but none the less
Reason admonishes all of us that the great chasm exists, and is not a
debatable question.
To men and women who really know the vertebrate animals by contact
with some of them upon their own levels, the reasoning power of the
latter is not a debatable question. The only real question is: how far
does their intelligence carry them? It is with puzzled surprise that we
have noted the curious diligence of the professors of animal psychology
in always writing of "animal behavior," and never of old-fashioned,
common-sense animal intelligence. Can it be possible that any one of
them really refuses to concede to the