O.M.If Edison were in trouble and a stranger helped him out of it and next day he got into the same difficulty again, he would infer the wise thing to do in case he knew the stranger's address.Here is a case of a bird and a stranger as related by a naturalist.An Englishman saw a bird flying around about his dog's head, down in the grounds, and uttering cries of distress.
He went there to see about it.The dog had a young bird in his mouth--unhurt.The gentleman rescued it and put it on a bush and brought the dog away.Early the next morning the mother bird came for the gentleman, who was sitting on his veranda, and by its maneuvers persuaded him to follow it to a distant part of the grounds--flying a little way in front of him and waiting for him to catch up, and so on; and keeping to the winding path, too, instead of flying the near way across lots.The distance covered was four hundred yards.The same dog was the culprit; he had the young bird again, and once more he had to give it up.Now the mother bird had reasoned it all out: since the stranger had helped her once, she inferred that he would do it again; she knew where to find him, and she went upon her errand with confidence.
Her mental processes were what Edison's would have been.She put this and that together--and that is all that thought IS--and out of them built her logical arrangement of inferences.Edison couldn't have done it any better himself.
Y.M.Do you believe that many of the dumb animals can think?
O.M.Yes--the elephant, the monkey, the horse, the dog, the parrot, the macaw, the mocking-bird, and many others.The elephant whose mate fell into a pit, and who dumped dirt and rubbish into the pit till bottom was raised high enough to enable the captive to step out, was equipped with the reasoning quality.
I conceive that all animals that can learn things through teaching and drilling have to know how to observe, and put this and that together and draw an inference--the process of thinking.
Could you teach an idiot of manuals of arms, and to advance, retreat, and go through complex field maneuvers at the word of command?
Y.M.Not if he were a thorough idiot.
O.M.Well, canary-birds can learn all that; dogs and elephants learn all sorts of wonderful things.They must surely be able to notice, and to put things together, and say to themselves, "I get the idea, now: when I do so and so, as per order, I am praised and fed; when I do differently I am punished."Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
Y.M.Granting, then, that dumb animals are able to think upon a low plane, is there any that can think upon a high one?
Is there one that is well up toward man?
O.M.Yes.As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!
Y.M.Oh, come! you are abolishing the intellectual frontier which separates man and beast.
O.M.I beg your pardon.One cannot abolish what does not exist.
Y.M.You are not in earnest, I hope.You cannot mean to seriously say there is no such frontier.
O.M.I do say it seriously.The instances of the horse, the gull, the mother bird, and the elephant show that those creatures put their this's and thats together just as Edison would have done it and drew the same inferences that he would have drawn.
Their mental machinery was just like his, also its manner of working.Their equipment was as inferior to the Strasburg clock, but that is the only difference--there is no frontier.
Y.M.It looks exasperatingly true; and is distinctly offensive.It elevates the dumb beasts to--to--O.M.Let us drop that lying phrase, and call them the Unrevealed Creatures; so far as we can know, there is no such thing as a dumb beast.
Y.M.On what grounds do you make that assertion?
O.M.On quite simple ones."Dumb" beast suggests an animal that has no thought-machinery, no understanding, no speech, no way of communicating what is in its mind.We know that a hen HASspeech.We cannot understand everything she says, but we easily learn two or three of her phrases.We know when she is saying, "I have laid an egg"; we know when she is saying to the chicks, "Run here, dears, I've found a worm"; we know what she is saying when she voices a warning: "Quick! hurry! gather yourselves under mamma, there's a hawk coming!" We understand the cat when she stretches herself out, purring with affection and contentment and lifts up a soft voice and says, "Come, kitties, supper's ready"; we understand her when she goes mourning about and says, "Where can they be? They are lost.Won't you help me hunt for them?" and we understand the disreputable Tom when he challenges at midnight from his shed, "You come over here, you product of immoral commerce, and I'll make your fur fly!" We understand a few of a dog's phrases and we learn to understand a few of the remarks and gestures of any bird or other animal that we domesticate and observe.The clearness and exactness of the few of the hen's speeches which we understand is argument that she can communicate to her kind a hundred things which we cannot comprehend--in a word, that she can converse.And this argument is also applicable in the case of others of the great army of the Unrevealed.It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
Now as to the ant--
Y.M.Yes, go back to the ant, the creature that--as you seem to think--sweeps away the last vestige of an intellectual frontier between man and the Unrevealed.
