ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.
[To TES EDITOR Or THZ "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Perhaps I should have said the " Intelligence of Animals," but my meaning, in relation to the interesting correspondence in your columns, is no doubt clear. The whole question seems to me to lie in the proverbial nut-shell, and to be solveable by the proverbial common-sense. Dogs' hearing is undoubtedly very keen and accurate, and even subtle ; and dogs have also the power of putting this and that together in a marvellously shrewd and almost rational fashion. They cannot understand sentences, but they get hold of words, i.e., sounds, arid keep them pigeon- holed in their memory. I might as well argue moral principle from the fact that my dog " Karl," like scores of other dogs, will hold a piece of biscuit on his nose so long as I say " trust," and will when I say " paid for" gaily toss his head and catch the biscuit in his honest mouth, as argue that because he finds eleven tennis-balls among the shrubs in five minutes, when I say, " We can't find them at all, 1 Karl,' do go and find them, good dog, will you ? Find the balls, old fellow,"—therefore he understands my sentence. He simply grasps the words " find" and " balls," sees the game at a stand-still, and reasons out our needs and his responsibilities, quickened by the expectation of pattings on the head, pettings, and pieces of biscuit. It is re- markable that if I try to delude him by uttering " base coin " in the shape of words just like the real words, as, for example, if I say " Jacob," instead of " paid for," he makes no mistake, but refuses the morsel, however delicate, till it is " paid for."
Prominent nouns, participles, verbs, &c., make up the lingua franca that so beautifully links together men and dogs, and now and then men and horses, their intelligence being quickened by their dumbness, as is that of deaf and dumb men and women, whose other faculties become so keenly intensified, and who put this and that together so much more quickly than do we who have all our faculties. There are of course " Admirable Crichtons " among dogs, as there are among men, but the difference between dog and dog will generally, I think, be traceable more to human training than to born capacity. The yearning look which " Karl" gives when (told to " speak ") ho gives forth his voice in response, is sometimes piteously like, " Oh, that I could really tell all I feel !" He is like, and all dogs of average intelligence are like, the Frenchman I met yester- day on the beach at Hastings, who wanted to know whether he could reach Ramsgate on foot before night- fall, and how far it was ; and who, as I only know a few French words, and am utterly unable to speak or understand sentences, was obliged to make me understand his wants by a few nouns such as everybody knows, and by causing me to put this and that together. There is of course the vital defect in the parallel that I could learn to understand French, and the dog could never learn to understand sentences ; but as so many parallels have vital defeats of some kind, even down to that historic self-drawn parallel between Alexander and the robber, we may well say, whether we be men or dogs, " Let me reflect." Dogs do undoubtedly reflect, and reason, and remember; and they never forget their " grammar," as school-boys do. Instinct, like chance, is only a name expressing fitly enough our own ignorance. Did not Luther and Wesley believe in the resurrection of animals am, Sir, &c., • Norihmarston, August 13th. S. B. JAMES.
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