Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-08-17
LED BY THEIR NOSES.
Animals Form Impressions by Smell No
than by Sight or Toueh

Animals Form Impressions by Smell More
than by sight or roueh.
1t is very doubtful, indeed, whether
people appreciate h0W-gseat is the gulf
between our human &S1ghts and feel
ings-thoughts more tan feelings-&nd
those Of the lower animals. One hear
commonplaceS of the possibility of An
extra sense, and 50 on. oftan enough,
but the entire difference of mental basis
that must exist between us and the
cats, dogs and horses which we fancy
we understand, seems hardly ever to be
conceived. In one direction all ani41als
are alike-all dread death and phyaical
injury, all eagerly seek and accept suit
able food, all have III Sheir earlier days
that tendency to ;rs1ease the serious
business of after life whiehNve call play
These common needa. and Vaccinations
furnish q mental suSstEatum, lingua
franco, that roughly an may<eompre-
bend. but into its cruae, almost form
less communicati9s what an infinite
amount Of ourselves we are inclined to
read in, without further justification.
The lion in the meHagerie sprawls,
with his green-gray eyes staring out, it
seems, into the infinite. Splendid fell
low" we say; noble creaturel He is
thinking of the blue mountains that
bounded his desert world. About as
much, dear poetess, as you, when you
have that look upon your face, are
thinking of the summstion Of infinite
series or katabolic metaboly
Let us first analyze a little the ele-
ments in the picture of the universe
painted on their own minds! 1t is a
harmony in space and time. You think
OF a thing as a form having position
in what you call space. and changing as
the minutes, hours and days slip by.
The human world is a world of pictures,
our memories are sight images that we
raise from their sleep in our brains for
little while. We seem to live at the
back of our eyes. The human world is
visible universe par excellence.
But since the days of Bishop Berkeley
we have come to perceive more and
more distinctly that the eye sees so
clearly, not by its own virtue. but as
the result of the education afforded it
by our hands. At first the world of the
child must be a fiat confusion of shapes.
which it learned to interpret by the
movement of its hands over the forms
1t sees. The vision is at first without
depth, without relief, without modelling
or atmosphere Prof Preyer's little
boy, many months old. tried to snatch
the lamp in railway carriage several
feet beyond arms length.
! Those born blind, who at a later age
| have been restored 10 their sight bv
! medical skill, and who consequently
| have not learned to connect sight and
touch impressions, faneied all the things
they saw touched their eyes Indeed.
| 1t Is one of the elementary teachings of
| psychology that our perception of space
in our vision of the world comes to us
| through our fingers.
And the lion ha no fingers. Neifhta
do the cat, the cog and the horse pos
seSS these necessary media to nice dis
criminatiOn of 1apes and position
The horse, with digits Imprisoned in
a horny hoof, is IA particularly bad
ease. 1t is impossible 70 believe that
the painting on the eye of these crea-
lures is interpreted by them with any
thing like the delicacy or truth that we
can attribute to what we see. More
over . certain yellow spot of distinct
vision" common To rs and the apes is
absapt from their eyes.