The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-11
ANTMALs AND REASON.

ANIMALS AND AEASONs We are having a new installment of that same old question, Do animals reason7" We have no idea when it was first sprung or what began it. Pos- sibly it was Adam. When he found himself Chadwicked by Mother Eve, and heard her defence, he probably thought 1t out in this way: Now, that confounded old snake knew that I would do anything Eve said. and that is the way he reasoned that I'd eat that apple" Adam reasoned that the ser- pent reasoned the matter out before approaching Eve.
 But that Is probably an unimportant detail The main fact Is that the mat ter Is again to the front and getting itself aired by the scholars. There Is John Burroughs. for example, a man who writes books and essays and nu- merous other things, and he takes the position that an animal has no reason ing powers in the ordinary sense of the word, but that he Is guideded solely by his instincts and te some extent by memory. On the other side Is Profess sor Haecksl, one of the most noted scientists and philosophers we have. who insists that animals have as much sense as folks--and more than some folks. The Philadelphia Inquirer, speaking of his new book. just issued, says:
 He insists that there is no difference in kind between the intellectual facul- He does grant that man has attained by far the greatest intellectual status and that his concepts far transcend those of the brutes, but he insists that there is not only no dividing line be- tween man and the animals, but that the divergence between inorganic and organic nature Is hard to trace.
 Evidently the Professor differentiates between higher and lower animals just as he does between the higher and low that there are whole tribes or nations of human beings who are below some of the higher animals in their reason ing and perceptive faculties. There are tribes of savases who are but a very slight remove from brutes, and in some respects the brutes have the best of them. They appear to be almost en- tirely without reasoning powers; or if they have any they are In such an embryo condition as to be of little ser vice. On the other hand, there are we'll authenticated cases of such action on the part of animals that it is hard to deny to them the power of reason ing. There are instances where ele- plants, horses, dogs and some other animals have acted in a way that can- not be explained by attributing 1t to instinct or memory. If they were not governed by reason, how are we to &C., count for their actions? Their reason- ing powers may be limited and undevel- oped, but they do things that are hard to account for on any other hypothesis than that they possess some of the faculties that lift man above the brute.
 But when Professor Haeckel comes to speak of the beginning of things, all he says Is pure speculation. Quoting again from The 1nquirer's comments on his new book. we read:
 Professor Haeckel has for forty years been the champion of the theory that 1t Is possible to explain the origin and development of life by purely natural cases and without the slightest super natural interference. He does not be- lieve in a God or immortality; not only thinks them indemonstrable, but holds that such ideas are absolutely contra dicted by the laws of nature. He claims that life had its origin at the period when the earth cooled Of so as to permit the permanency of water in liquid form. He considers that all life takes Its origin from the protoplasm Cor plasm as he prefers to call it5, and that 1t arose out of chemical changes due to the mixture of albumen and wa ter He claims that this life was not miraculous or called from outside, but was, an orderly development by chem lstry of the process of nature. He sees in the first origin of life the potential ity of all kinds which have followed, both vegetable and animal, and that they are the result of development
 All this, we repeat. is speculative and nothing elsse. When a man, scholar. philosopher or isnoramus. gets to talking about the origin of things, the beginning and development of life, and the reasons for existence aside from what we are taught in the sacred Scriptures. he gets into deep water and founders beyond his depth. When he tells us that he believes in "a universe which grew of itself. which was never caused. and which stands as the mere result of eternal forces he talks rot. great scholar though he is. He gets back to where he can prove nothing, and cannot offer any sound reason why others should agree with him. He would better stick to the animals.
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 The Chattanooga News informs us that "the Democratic Party never claimed a bigger man than William J. Bryan" That should get The News a prominent notice at the head of the adj