simple to the relatively complex," the burden of proof rests on him who claims that at any time or place it ceases to be of universal application.

Perhaps no one has a right to affirm that gravitation is of universal application, and yet experience warrants one in assuming its universality as a working hypothesis till an exception is proved. So it is assumed that the development of the nervous system has been one continuous upward movement, till we have the mind of man. This would lead us to expect to find the difference between reason and instinct one of degree, and in the last analysis this may be so. Evolution teaches that certain species have become side-tracked, and are forever consigned to inferior positions. These are the animals whose mentality never rises above the plane of instincts. As morphological connecting links are wanting, so in a still more emphatic way is there a gulf between the highest instinct and the human mind.

Professor James says: "No actions but such as are done for an end, and show a choice of means, can be called indubitable expressions of mind." Accepting this criterion, that in order to be classed as reason an act must show a choice of means," it is possible to draw a sharp line between reason and instinct.

It is somewhat generally believed that instincts are attributes of the lower animals only, and the fact is overlooked that man is richly endowed in

this direction, especially in infancy. Instincts are impulses. "Theirs not to reason why." In physiology we call them reflexes. The human infant is born with the instinct to suck fully developed. The tendency to clasp any object that comes in contact with the fingers or toes is very marked. In fact, this instinct is stronger a few hours after birth than at any later period.

New-born children are able to sustain their own. weight by grasping a lead-pencil, often with only one hand. The evolutionary bearing of this is very interesting, and shows very beautifully how natural selection could, in the lower animals, propagate this impulse. The young of the chimpanzee whose grasp of the mother was strongest would by this means escape destruction when pursued by an enemy. Of course in man the law of the "survival of the fittest" is operative in a lesser degree. The transiency of many infantile instincts, when not exercised, will be again referred to under the subject Habit." Fear and love we possess in common with the animals. The sexual passion is perhaps one of the strongest examples.

DO ANIMALS REASON?

Let the great John Burroughs answer it.

Apropos of the question, 'Do animals think?' a correspondent, writing from Washington, says that I deny this power to the lower animals because

I use the word in a too restricted sense. He then

proceeds to say that if we use the word 'chin' to signify 'exclusively a portion of the human face, meaning that portion which is extended perpendicularly downward from the mouth, we would hesitate to say that lower animals have chins. So if we define "laugh" as spreading the mouth in merriment we could not say that animals laugh.'

"I am quite ready to admit that animals think in as strict a sense as they have chins or as they laugh. A feeling of play and merriment they certainly have, but this feeling is practically entirely physical. I don't suppose an animal could appreciate a joke, or the comic, or the absurd. Man is the only animal that laughs or weeps, though tears may run from the eyes of a suffering beast. And the chin of a bird or beast is a very rudimentary affair indeed.

Then

"Take the case of the little yellow warbler when the cowbird drops her egg into its nest - does anything like a process of thought or reflection pass in the bird's mind then? The warbler is much disturbed when she discovers the strange egg, and her mate appears to share her agitation. after a time, and after the two have apparently considered the matter together, the mother bird proceeds to bury the egg by building a new nest on top of the old one. If another cowbird's egg is dropped in this one, she will proceed to get rid of this in the same way. This all looks very like reflec

tion. But let us consider the matter a moment. This thing between the cowbird and the warbler has been going on for innumerable generations. The yellow warbler seems to be the favorite host of this parasite, and something like a special instinct may have grown up in the warbler with reference to this strange egg. The bird reacts, as the psychologists say, at sight of it, then she proceeds to dispose of it in the way above described. All yellow warblers act in the same manner, which is the way of instinct. Now if this procedure was the result of an individual thought or calculation on the part of the birds, they would not all do the same thing; different lines of conduct would be hit upon. How much simpler and easier it would be to throw the egg out - how much more like an act of rational intelligence. So far as I know no bird does eject this parasitical egg, and no other bird besides the yellow warbler gets rid of it in the way I have described. I have seen a green-backed warbler rearing the young cowbird.

"Another correspondent is sure his dog thinks when he sits up in front of him while he is reading, and taps him on his back or leg as a reminder that he wants the ball in his master's pocket to play with; and that his parrot thinks when, on hearing him enter the house, it begins savagely to bite its cage and to make hideous noises, all with a view to obtaining its freedom, so that it can make its way to its beloved master, and caress and play with him. If

such things indicate powers of thought, then nearly all animals think. The bee does when it goes forth from the hive in quest of honey; the big midsummer spider does when it shakes its net to frighten you away; the mother bird does when she flutters over the ground at your feet to decoy you away from her nest, etc. But none of these acts can properly be called the result of thinking.

"When a parrot takes a crust of bread and soaks it in its cup of water before eating it, that looks much more like the result of a mental process." I

There are many instances of animal sagacity which seem to show a certain degree of reasoning. The following is quoted by Professor James:

"I have two dogs, a small, long-legged pet dog, and a rather large watch-dog. Immediately beyond the house court is a garden, into which one enters through a low lattice gate which is closed by a latch on the yard side. This latch is opened by lifting it. Besides this, moreover, the gate is fastened on the garden side by a string nailed to a gate-post. Here, as often as one wished, could the following sight be observed. If the little dog was shut in the garden and wanted to go out he placed himself before the gate and barked. Immediately the large dog in the court would hasten to him and raise the latch with his nose, while the little dog on the garden side leaped up, and catching the string in his teeth, bit it thru. Certainly reasoning here seems to prevail.

1 Outing Magazine, 1905.