The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-12-22
nnvlvrNG AN OLD DIscussIor.

nBvIvrNG AN OLD DIscUssIOr.
 A recent article in The New York Independent has started afresh the dis cussion of the question: Do animals reason? and. n might be expected. there are many opinions. learned and otherwise. being delivered on the sub
 feet. That is one result of putting . question to which . positive reply can-
 not be given. and clearly this is one of those queries. If animals could talk. they might be able to make 1t clear whether they are reasoning be- ings or not. Come to think of it, though. some people talk without ap-
 parently doing much reasoning--but
 let that pass.
 One of the troubles with this sub ject is that we see no way of differ entiating between thinking and remem- i, bering, and between reason and in
 stinct. whether the action of an ani-
 nal in any certain instance Is caused by the Instinct bred in him through 
 many generations of his kind, or be-
 cause he remembers something of like nature that he has experienced. or be- cause he actually reasons 1t out. who
 can tell? When the hunter takes down his gun the dog which has been in the
 habit of hunting with him leaps and barks and shows every evidence of toy over the prospect of good sport Does the animal reason that if the master takes his gun he does 1t for the purpose of going out to kill something. or does he merely remember that he
 has been out before when the gun and its owner went with him? If the man merely cleans his gun and puts it back
 in it's place the dog as clearly shows
 disapr ointment as he showed joy be- fore Is 1t the disappointment of reason or memory or instinctf
 Those who have closely watched the actions of trained elephants. to take
 them as an example. must have been struck by the methodical and accurate way they perform certain tasks and doubtless many observers have been
 led to the conclusion that they could not possibly do some of the things they do unless they had at least come reasoning powers. It is not exactly in- stinct in their case. because they do ,t,tI f,, ron nft that could not have been required of them or known by them in their native coun- try: but here again 1t may be that memory alone guides them in their operations.
 "The truth is." reasons The Hart ford Times, we know very little about ehe minds of animals. We knowsson1e- thing about our own minds because we can examine and report upon our
 consciousness and, through the medium,
 of language, can learn something. about
 the consciousness of others. But we
 are entirely in the dark about the men,
 tai operations of animals. Montafgne
 said more than three centuries ago.
 "I amuse myself with my cat. but how
 do I know but that she is amusing her self with meT' We find that in the
 case of men. mind and a brain always
 go together. We say animals have
 brains. therefore they have minds. We
 should go step further and say their
 brains are very different from ours
 tn herefore their minds must be entirely
 different. There is 6 strong analogy
 between their instinctivs actions and
 ours, and a slight analogy between
 their rational actions and ours, but so slight that we are left in the dark as to their mental operations. That is about as far as we can go.