Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-06
HOW AN ANIMAL REASONS.
Instances Show That They Often I'm
derstand Spoken Words.

From Outing.
We contemplate our own minds, we have
! an immediate cogni8ance of a certain flow
| Of thoughts and feelings. But If we con-
| template mind in other persons it is not So.
We can only infer the existence and the
! nature of thoughts and feelings from the
activities of the persons which appear to
exhibit them. Similarly, wherever we find
| an animal able to learn by its own indi-
vidual experience we have the same right to
predicate mind as existing in such an ami
NAL that we have to predicate 1t as ex-
listing in any human being other than our
selves. For instance, a dog has always
been accustomed to eat when hungry and
food was at hand. That may be due to re-
fiex action alone. But now suppose that
the dog has been taught not to eat until
he receives a certain signal then we have
exactly the same kind of evidence that the
dogs actions are prompted by mind as
we have that the actions of a man are SO
prompted.
For instance, Prof. Romanes said his
friend Prof. Gerald Yeo had terrier which
was taught to keep niorsel of food on its
snout till it received the verbal signal
paid for when it Immediately tossed the
food into it's mouth. Romanes thought 1t
worth while to carry the case further and
while the dog was expecting the signal,
said ''Pnafore." V. The dog gave a start and
very nearly threw the food off his nose, but
Immediately arrested the movement. evil
Iii
iment was repeated many dimes and al
ways with the same result
Romanesr tellspof a aehiplpapzeeI 1T the
geological gardens in London that had
learned from its keeperthe meanings of so
many words and phrases that the keeper
was able to explain to the animal what he
wished her to do. For example she would
push a straw through any particular mesh
in the network of her cage which he in
dicated by such phrases as The one near
est your foot; now the one next the key
hole; now the one above the BAR and
so on. Such proficiency is not attained
by a civilized child for several years, and
Gallon tells of the Dammaras that each
sheep must be paid for separately. Thus:
Suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the
rate of exchange for one sheep, 1t would
sorely puzzle Dammara to take two sheep
and give him four sticks.
Thus it would appear that the mind of
man in childhood or in savagery is not by
any means so superior to that of the higher
animals as is claimed by some. Such ami
mails are speechless by reason of an ana
tomical accident and not from an absence
of ideas or ignorance of words. Yet the
faculty of understanding words in so con-
siderable a degree brings us to the very
border of the faculty of using words with
an intelligent appreciation of their mean
ing.
Now this is a fact of extraordinary sig
nificance, proving that language and
thought not confined exclusively to
mankind. But on the contrary, the higher
animals share with us the capacity to I'M
derstand words-and words moreover, so
definite and particular in meaning as is
involved in explaining the particular mesh
in a large piece of wire netting. 1t would
seem, therefore, that if these animals could
articulate they would employ simple words
to express simple ideas. For it would not
involve the exercise of any higher mental
faculty to say the word Come" than 1t
does to pull at a dress or a coat to express
the same idea or to utter the word open"
instead of mewing before a closed door.