The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-01-22
INSTINCT IN
THE animal
How 1t Is Mistaken for
Thought-Seemingly Log
ical Processes of Apparent
Reasoning in Brute and
Plant are Physical Phe-
nOmena.
In an exceedingly interesting arti-

In an exceedingly interesting arti-
Gle, a writre in Outing" says:
When 1 hear a person expatiating
on the reasoning powers OF the
lower animals, as / often do, want
to tell him of the wonderful reason
ing power of the flies that poster
our old cow in summer Those
! flies have measured the length
of old Brindle's tail so accur-
ately that they know the precise spot
on her body where the, tail cannot
reach them on these spots they set
tie and torment her Their behavior
reveals great powers of calculation
and reasoning. BY what means they
measured the swing of that tail so ac-
curately do not know. When l come
| styling up with switch in hand, they
dart away before 1 can get in a stroke
because they know l can reach them;
they take the measure of my arm and
switch on the instant-on the fly as
| it were.
Now is not that reasoning just as
good as much of the reasoning of our
new school of writer's?
We translate the action of bird
and beast into human thought Just as
We translate their cries and calls
into human speech. But the bird
does not utter the word We ascribe
to it, it only makes a sound that sug-
gests the words. So its behavior is
not the result of thought, but it is
such as to suggest thought to think
ing animal, and we proceed TO ex-
plain it in terms of thought.
We see crow approaching a nit
of meat upon the lawn in winter aud
note his suspicion. He circles about
and surveys it from all points, and
approaches 1t with extreme caution,
and we say he suspects some trap
or concealed enemy, or plot to DO
him injury, when in fact he does not
consciously suspect anything or think
anything; he is simply obeying ais
Unborn instinct to be on the lookout
for danger at all times and in AL |
places-the instinct of seIf-preserya-
ton. When the chickadee comes to |
the bone or bit of suet upon the tree
under your window, it does so with |
iittle or no signs of suspicion Its |
enemies are of a different kind and /
its instincts work differently. Or /
when We see fox trying to elude /
or delay the hound that is pursuing
him, by taking to rail fences, or bare
plowed fields, or to the ice or frozen
streams, we say he knows what he is
doing, he knows his scent will not |
lay upon the rail or the bare earth
or upon the ice as upon the snow
or the moist ground. We translate
his act into our mental concepts. The
fox is of course, trying to elude or
to shake off his pursuers, but he is
not drawing upon his stores of nat /
ural knowledge or his pawers of
thought TO do so; he does not real
iZe as you Or l would that it is the
scent Of his foot that gives the clue
to his enemy. How can he have any
general ideas about odors and sun
faces that best retain them? He is
simply obeying the instructive cum
ming OF his vulpine nature and takes
to sAe fences or to the ice or to the
water as new expedient when
others have failed. Such a course
on our part under like circumstances
would be the result of some sort of
mental process with the fox 1t is evil
dence of the fiexibility and resource
fulness Of instinct. The animals all
do rational things without reason,
cunning things without calculation
and provident things without fore
thought OF course we have to fall
back upon instinct to account of their
aCl-IndI 11udI6, IAuGuI
wisdom of the animal kingdom. IL We
deny instinct as some persons do, and
can it all reason, then we have two
kinds of reason to account for, and
our last state is worse than our first
No juggling with terms can make ami
NAL reason. The difference is lust
as great as that between sight and |
touch. Mans reason is a light that
shows him many things, while ami
NAL instinct is a blind impulse that
has no mental genesis, If the fox, in
trying to shake of the hound really
or had mental concepts, he
would do as Mr.. Roberts fox did
seek the highway and when a wagon
came alonge slyly Jump into the hind
end<sOf it and, curling up there, take
a ride of mile or two
In both the animals and vegetable
worlds we see kind Of intelligence
that We are. always tempted to de-
7cribe in terms of our own intelIi-
sence; it seems to run parallel to
and to foreshadow our own as to
ways and means and getting on in the
preservation, dis
semination, adaptation-the plant re-
sorting to many ingenious devices to
scatter seed and to secure cross-fer-
tiliZatiOn; the animal eluding its enc
mics, hiding its door or it's nest, find
ing its way, securing its food, and
many other things-all exhibiting a
kind OF intelligence that is independ-
emit OF instruction or experience and
that suggests human reason without
being one with 1T. Each knows what
It's kind knows, and each does what
les kind does, but only in man do we
reach self-knOwledge and the free
lom of conscious intelligence.
The animals all profit more or less
by experience and this would at first
thought seem to imply some sort of
mental capacity. But vegetables profit