DO ANIMALS REASON?
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—The question whether animals reason is largely one of psychological terms. One contributor, Mr. C. A. Wells, seems to infer that reason impliei any action other than instinctive. But no one denies to animals perhaps the same powers of perception and inference that we have, obtained in the same way by experience, and not by instinct. Yet these. are not reason. I am surprised to find the intermittent lameness of a horse adduced as a proof. First, many slight lamenesses appear only after rest, and disappear with exercise. This is why a horse is always put to stand before a veterinary examination, and why one first watches him in the stall and when he is being brought out. Secondly, excitement over.i comes the effects in slight cases. Thus pleasure on turning homewards induces insensibility. We ourselves when lame can forget pain in slight cases under the excitement of a chase, &c. A dealer often takes care to disturb his horses before the visitor sees them, and when a horse is led out starts him off with whip-cracking and with the rein tightly held. I need not go into details ; they are well known; but I always insist on a reversal of the process. Slight latuenesses. disease of the navicular bone for one, are often slow and insidious. They will appear and disappear in various cir- cumstances until they are pronounced. I have often heard such cases termed " shamming," and held my tongue. Inferences from animal sagacity are always dangerous ; we naturally desire to do honour to our pets. They are most bard to combat when inference or association and instinct combine, as in the behaviour of a dog when he is detected doing wrong. Association here suggests to him punishment, and instinct the cringing demeanour by which a thousand ancestors have best averted it. The psychology of the animal, like that of the' child, requires much more careful observation than groom,' keeper, or nurse will ever give it. I will spare you any psychological treatment of the matter, but to my mind the animal shows not even the beginnings of conceptual capacity.
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