dominant in one form or another among the whole human race; even where,
degraded by numberless superstitions, it exists among the dusky tribes
of Africa, the Red American Indians, or in the countless mythological
legends of nations long passed away, the instinctive belief in a
God holds universal sway. In the common affairs of life, too, the
teaching of instinct is displayed, as in presentiments, which, like
impulses, have frequently no rational basis, but by the observance of
which, our lives are not uncommonly modified in their effects and made
subservient to the unseen. It is indeed possible, were the chapters of
human lives actually recorded, it would be found in how many important
instances and numberless occasions the exercise of instinct prevails
above that of reason. It is, however, to be noted, that in proportion
as the exercise of intellectual force is stimulated by education and
strengthened by practice, instinctive action becomes more and more
influenced by reason; and just as particular muscles, by long use,
increase in bulk, so the repeated receptivity of ideas by the higher
organism of the brain leads to the reflective powers being increased;
and, as a natural consequence, the actions thus performed betoken
the connection of ideas from which they spring, and are consequently
attributed to reason.
Reason may thus be regarded, in the abstract, as the result of ideas
received by the sensory ganglia, and transmitted by them to the higher
organs of perception, reflected thence on the motory system by which
the actions of animal life are governed, the repeated discharge of
these functions constituting processes of thought or reflection.
Admitting this to be a rough outline of reasoning with its outcome
action, we have a familiar example of this process displayed by members
of the animal kingdom that are habitually brought into the society
and companionship of man. Daily usage supplies experience, which, by
the receptivity of ideas, constitutes a reasoning faculty, such as is
constantly manifested in the actions of various animals, and which as
much overrules mere instinct in them as it does in the higher animal
man. For example, in my dog the predatory instinct is very strongly
marked; but it daily passes and frequently enters butchers’ shops,
sniffing under the carcases and joints for any scraps of meat, however
small, yet never attempting to take advantage of a piece that is
offered for sale. We have also frequently noticed, when driving on our
rounds in a country practice, the horse would voluntarily slacken its
speed as it approached the house of a patient, and scarcely require
a check to draw up at the door. Why some human beings should betray
a jealous disapproval of the recognition of reason in animals, seems
to us utterly unaccountable. It is surely no insult to the Creator
of all things if we grant the attribute of reasoning powers to His
creatures; while it savours strongly of narrow and limited views of His
beneficence to deny it.
It is the object of this paper to claim recognition and respect
for the reasoning faculties of animals, particularly the class of
domestic animals that are brought into daily intercourse with man.
In them, more especially, we note habits of thought and traits of
intelligence, apart from and above the mere prompting of instinct,
that entitle them to our best consideration. But in the dog, as the
friend of man, we shall naturally find the examples most ready to
hand, not only of emotions akin to those of his master, but sentiments
of honour, love, watchfulness, trust, duty, and obedience, courage,
forbearance, self-denial, overcoming the mere instinct of hunger; also
sensitiveness, shame, and jealousy, with self-devotion surpassing
even the fear of death. In the horse, too, we find obedience, trust,
eagerness to please, and affection. Even in cattle, we may notice
attachment to home and persons, courage, patience, and docility.
We do not here propose to enter on a list of the attributes of reason
to be observed in all animals; it is needless to relate the numberless
authenticated instances recorded of elephants, tamed deer, gazelles,
monkeys, and birds. To the thoughtful observer, proofs of intelligence
and reflection, with experience, judgment, and conscientiousness are
readily found, and even in the wild animals, as the rat, the fox,
lions, and tigers, remarkable facts are recorded, which evidence
powers of reflection and the exercise of judgment and reason. A lion,
for instance, has been seen to drive away a cow from the herd, not
rending it at once, but urging it by menaces, so as to secure its prey
in a more convenient spot. Tigers watch in the jungle for the passing
post-carriers, recognising their approach by the jingling sound of
their ornaments, and knowing from experience that the wearers will
afford them the necessary meal. The stories of foxes are legion; their
cunning in eluding pursuit, and their prompt recognition of such chance
advantages as the occasion may afford, evince a reasoning power beyond
the mere impulse of instinct. Again, in rats, who has not witnessed
countless proofs of intelligence, denoting forethought, prudence,
and care, not only in their search for food, avoidance of snares,
and concealment, but also exemplified in their mutual intercourse? A
regimental officer once stationed at Aden described to the writer the
skill of a party of rats in purloining every day the bread placed on
the dinner-table. The servant who laid the table could not account for
the disappearance of the several portions of bread placed ready beside
the napkin and glasses, till, after watching some time, a small party
of rats was seen to enter the room, and while some of them held the
lower border of the table-cloth, another rapidly ascended, and mounting
the table, dislodged the pieces of bread, which, falling off, were
speedily appropriated by those below. The beaver has been often cited
as exhibiting an almost human aptitude in the construction of dams and
the formation of its lodge, and this appears more as the result of
deductive reasoning, taught, no doubt, by experience, and transmitted
by hereditary descent. In birds, the Corvidæ afford striking instances
of the exercise of judgment and reflection, especially in the habits of
rooks and ravens; we might add also magpies. But space prevents us from
enlarging on this point.
The common wild bee constructs its nest in a mossy bank, and the
comb is formed of rude circular cells arranged in a small group. The
hive-bee, whose thickly peopled home affords but a limited space,
constructs its comb of closely packed hexagonal cells, an arrangement
which gives the greatest room for each cell in a circumscribed area.
It accidentally occurred to the writer, many years since, to put
aside a large box of pills closely packed, and left, without being
opened, through the summer. When at last examined, it was found that
the pills had become closely impacted together, and each individual
pill was compressed in the form of a hexagon, remarkably resembling in
outline the waxen cells of the hive-bee. The conduct of ants, in their
communications by signalling to each other, evinces something more than
blind instinct; otherwise, how can we explain the deliberate action
which results from information conveyed by signals, and the plan of
operations conducted on a scale beyond all relation to the size of the
insignificant insects by which they are performed?
Mankind is too apt to monopolise the claim to reason, and allows to
the lower animal world the gift of instinct as a kind of compromise;
whereas, it has been abundantly shown that he shares also in the gift
of instinct, and they likewise have a fair claim to the exercise of
reason. There is nothing inconsistent in this view with the great
plan of creation, for all classes of animals partake of the elements
of the human frame in their general physical construction adapted to
particular requirements, as anatomists have shown that man in his
development from the ovum passes through the several grades of the
animal kingdom by different homologies to the perfect human frame.
And though in him reason assumes its highest condition, yet in the
various types of his race there are as widely differing degrees of
reasoning power, from the tree-dwelling tribes of Central India and
the Lilliputian inhabitants of the forests of Borneo, to the highly
educated and more amply endowed members of European and transatlantic
society; and as, in the human race, reason exercises a paramount and
prevailing sway, under which all other forces are subject, so instinct
remains behind, still an element of humanity, though less conspicuous
in the higher culture of civilisation than in the primitive savage,
and more evident still in the lower animal world; though even here
subjected to reasoning power, according, in a manner, to the amount
of education and enlightenment received by these at the hand of man.
Instinct belongs no more to the brute beast than to man, and reason is
the heritage of both.
THE WILL OF MRS ANNE BOWDEN.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.
‘Tipsy!’ I muttered to myself with a scornful glance, and a strong
feeling of disgust, as I hurriedly passed him by. Such would be,
I suppose, the almost invariable exclamation of a young man whom
circumstances combined with taste to keep in the path of strictest
temperance, on seeing an elderly and prosperous-looking gentleman
lurching unevenly along a street in the City between four and five
o’clock one damp February afternoon. ‘Tipsy!’ I said, and passed on;
yet, though so sad a spectacle had neither pleasure nor interest for
me, I turned, after I had gone a few steps, to look once more at the
supposed inebriate. That one glance showed me that my hasty judgment of
his condition had been as unjust as it was uncharitable. That look of
pain and distress, those starting eyes, the heavy beads of perspiration
on the brow, were due not to intoxication, but to illness. As I looked
at him, he stumbled, tottered on a step or two, and would have fallen,
had I not, in two hasty strides, reached his side and caught him in my
arms. A large envelope, apparently containing some heavy document, fell
from his nerveless hand at the moment of his collapse. I picked it up,
and hastily thrust it into the pocket of my overcoat, still supporting
my helpless burden. The act was instinctive, almost unconscious, and
no sooner done than forgotten; and the next moment my mind was wholly
occupied with an appeal to one of the many young men who were hurrying
by, as I myself had been, to catch the train at Broad Street, to expend
a few minutes in calling a cab for me and the unfortunate man who had
so suddenly become my charge.
I drove him to the nearest hospital, and left him there, stating in a
few words the little I knew of his sudden attack, and the chance which
had thrown him on my protection.
‘It is apoplexy,’ said the house-surgeon, in whose care I left him.
‘Doubtless, he is some speculator who has risked too much in a shaky
Company, and whose head has given way under the shock of losing his
money. We have cases like that here pretty often, especially in times
of long-continued depression of trade. Will you wait and see if he has
on him a visiting card or anything bearing his name and address?’
I declined to stay longer than was necessary, for I had promised to
spend that evening with my fellow-clerk Atherton, and did not want
to be late for my engagement with the lad, for whom I had a sort of
elder-brotherly affection. But I promised to call at the hospital next
day and inquire for my protégé; and departed, the richer by what I
suppose would be regarded as a virtuous action, and the poorer by the
eighteenpence I had paid for the cab-fare.
It now seems to me to have been despicably, ludicrously selfish to
have thought so little of the fate of the man I had left in such
dangerous plight at the hospital, and so much of that expenditure of
eighteenpence. I hope that I am not naturally a miser, yet I fear some
niggardly instincts were dawning in me at that time, as, indeed, is
almost inevitable in a young man who, having passed his early years
under the shadow of that most wearing of sorrows—debt, is desirous of
not merely living within, but effecting some savings from, an income of
a hundred and twenty pounds a year. I recall now that I determined to
do without tobacco for a week; and with this resolution in my mind, I
hurried to the Broad Street station, _en route_ for Atherton’s lodgings
in Camden Town.
I could not have told at that time what attracted me so strongly
to Gerald Atherton, any more than Olivia could have explained the
prophetic fascination which drew her to Viola. But there was an
atmosphere of youth and freshness about the boy—he was the youngest of
all the clerks in our office, a bright-eyed lad, not yet eighteen—that
had a refreshing influence on me. I was not old myself—just
twenty-four—but eight years’ life in a City office, coming after a
boyhood which had had many of the anxieties of middle age, made me feel
almost patriarchal compared with my joyous and inexperienced junior.
There was, too, a similarity in the circumstances of our lives which
tended to friendship.
‘Only, you know, Langham,’ said the boy one day, early in
our acquaintance, when we were speaking on the subject, ‘my
responsibilities are greater than yours; I have May to look after. A
sister is a great anxiety, and when she happens to be your twin-sister,
you feel that you are in a special way bound to take care of her.’
‘Where is your sister now?’ I asked.
‘Not far away. She is companion to an old lady at Hampstead. That’s why
I live in Camden Town, because it is comparatively near; and I can go
occasionally to see May, and even sometimes have a visit from her at my
lodgings.’
‘Companion to an old lady!’ I repeated. ‘That’s a dreary life for a
young girl.’
‘May doesn’t seem to dislike it; and Mrs Bowden treats her very
kindly. The plague of her life is the continual espionage of the old
lady’s relations—or rather her dead husband’s relations; she seems
to have none of her own—who are quite convinced that my poor little
sister’s courtesy to her employer—she hasn’t it in her to be uncivil
to a boa-constrictor, the little darling!—is inspired by mercenary
motives. That annoys her; but as we are two young people alone in
the world, without a penny except what we earn, we must put up with
disagreeables—May, with the suspicions of those greedy waiters on dead
men’s shoes; and I, with getting the blame of everybody else’s blunders
as well as my own. Really, the undeserved or only half-deserved
scoldings I get, sometimes irritate me fearfully—and then at times I
feel I’d do anything for a good game at cricket. I don’t think I could
bear it all, if you didn’t stand by me, Langham.’
‘Who wouldn’t stand by a manly boy like you, Gerald!’ I protested,
laughing.
‘Boy, my friend!’ cried Gerald with one of those bright merry glances,
accompanied with an upward toss of the head, which always came upon me
with the effect of a sunbeam—‘boy, indeed! I am a City man, sir, and
demand to be spoken to with respect!’
‘Moreover,’ I went on, ‘the circumstances of your early life are so
similar to those of my own childhood, that I felt interested in you as
soon as I knew them. My widowed mother, like yours, wore out her life
in a long struggle with poverty, and died just when I was about to
cease being a burden to her. The only difference is that my mother was
doubly overweighted by having to pay off debts of my father’s youth,
contracted before he ever met her.’
‘Did not your father’s family take the responsibility even of those?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘My grandfather, after bringing up his son to no
profession, and encouraging him in extravagance, cast him off on his
marriage with a penniless girl, and left him to sink or swim as best
he could. I imagine that my father cannot have been possessed of much
moral courage, or he would not have submitted to live on the earnings
of my mother’s music-teaching. But he had never been accustomed to
work, and his health was bad. He died when I was three years old. Then
my mother made an appeal to my grandfather to do something for me, if
not for her, or at least take the responsibility of those few hundred
pounds of debt which he could have paid without feeling himself a whit
poorer, but which formed a millstone round her neck. But the rich
Liverpool merchant, who was ready to subscribe lavishly to ostentatious
charities, refused to help his daughter-in-law by a penny, and refused
in _such_ a letter! My mother never showed it to me, but I found it in
her desk after her death. I keep it still, and to this day my blood
boils if I read its insulting words.’
‘And did your grandfather never soften?’
‘He gave no sign of it; and on his death, he left all he possessed to
my aunt, my father’s half-sister.’
‘And she?’
‘I confess,’ said I, ‘that she did make some advances towards me, but
they came at an unlucky moment. My mother had just died; and from the
letters I found after her death, I had learned for the first time with
what cruelty she had been treated. Besides, I had lately obtained my
first situation, and was disposed to be aggressively independent. So I
declined my aunt’s invitation to visit her with a rudeness which no one
would be guilty of but an inexperienced boy at the age when he is most
desirous of being thought a man.’
‘I suppose that was the end of it all?’
‘Not quite. Six months later, after I had come to London, I received
another letter from my aunt, in which she stated that she had intended
to adopt me and make me her heir, if I had not so insolently rejected
her friendly overtures; but that I need no longer hope for anything
from her, as she was about to be married shortly. And she added—rather
vindictively, I thought—that as her future husband was considerably
younger than herself, he would probably survive her and inherit
all her property. I fancy she thought to excite in me an avaricious
regret for my previous coldness; but in truth my only idea was that
in making her become the wife of a man much her junior, spite and
loneliness were combining to lead her into a great folly; for, as she
was considerably older than my father, she must by that time have been
quite a middle-aged woman, and I suspected the youthful husband of
fortune-hunting. That was the last I ever heard of my only surviving
relative. I don’t know what name she bore after her marriage, nor even
if she still lives. I stand quite alone.’
‘Poor old man!’ said the boy affectionately. ‘Rich as you are—from my
point of view, for your salary is twice as large as mine—I am better
off than you. I don’t stand alone; I have May.’
‘I should think a sister was only an additional anxiety,’ I replied.
‘True; but still there’s a selfish comfort in the thought that somebody
cares for you. At least, I like it. I’m a sentimental sort of animal,
who likes being petted—not a calm, self-contained creature like you.’
I doubt if I deserved Atherton’s epithets. I felt very lonely at times,
and the boy’s affection—for he was sincerely attached to me, and
had a refreshing un-English readiness to display his attachment—was
charming. I told him more of my history and feelings than I had ever
before confided to any one; for he was as sympathetic as a woman, while
possessing a discretion reputed to be rare among feminine creatures.
In truth I was greatly attached to Gerald, and I was quite distressed
this afternoon at the thought of being late for my engagement with him.
It was his birthday, and we were to take tea together at his lodgings,
and then go to the theatre, and I feared that my delay might interfere
with our plans.
But it was another and more cheerful accident than that of being late
that was to prevent our occupying the pit at the Lyceum that night.
I had expected to see Gerald’s face looking for me from the window
of his sitting-room, as I approached the little street with the long
name—Mount Edgcumbe Terrace—where he resided; but I was surprised, and
for the moment bewildered, to find _two_ faces gazing with interest
at my approaching figure—two faces so alike in feature and colouring,
that though a moment’s reflection convinced me that they must belong
to Gerald Atherton and his twin-sister, I could not have said which of
them was my friend’s. Each had the same bright, laughing, dark-blue
eyes, the same short, curling, dark-brown hair, the same contour and
expression, and at this moment the same merry and mischievous smile.
I thought I had never in my life seen a prettier sight than these two
joyous, youthful figures standing side by side.
‘Confess, Langham, that you didn’t know which was who, when you saw us
just now,’ cried Gerald as I entered the room.
I admitted that I had been puzzled for the moment; ‘though,’ I added,
‘I am sure that a longer glimpse would have enabled me to distinguish
Miss Atherton from you.’
‘Yes,’ returned Gerald, ‘I know that my poor little sister is only a
plain-looking likeness of my bewitching self, that could not deceive
any one for more than a moment.’
Miss Atherton made a little _moue_ of protest at her brother as she
said: ‘Mr Langham only means that the stool on which I was standing, to
make me look as tall as you, was so shaky, that I shouldn’t have been
able to keep on it a minute longer.’
Then I tried again to utter a complimentary remark, which Gerald again
appropriated, whereupon we all laughed and were friends at once.
I had known nothing of the effect of a woman’s presence in the house
since I had been old enough to appreciate it; it was therefore a
revelation to me to note how May Atherton glorified that dingy parlour
in Camden Town. As she moved to and fro, making the tea-table in some
nameless way a thousand times more attractive than the landlady knew
how to do, my eyes followed her with a persistence which would have
been embarrassing to her had she been troubled with the least degree
of self-consciousness; but of all the women I have ever known, May
Atherton was the most completely free from vanity and all the faults
that accompany it. At present her thoughts were occupied solely with
the pleasure of being in her brother’s society, and the desire to make
things brighter for him and his friend, whom, for Gerald’s sake, she
accepted as her friend also.
‘I really feel as if I knew you quite well, Mr Langham,’ she said, ‘for
Gerald has spoken to me often of you; and I am so glad to feel that my
boy has a good thoughtful friend, older than himself, to advise and
help him.’
The motherly air with which May uttered the last words sat prettily
if strangely on her extreme youth, and indeed between the pair of
children there were a hundred touches of reciprocal tenderness and
protection, which were very pleasant to look at, though they made me
feel very lonely and a little envious. Not that I had any cause to feel
neglected; for Gerald and his sister united in making much of me—he for
my own sake, she for her brother’s sake. Only for your brother’s sake,
were you so kind to me then, sweet May; afterwards, it was, I hope, for
a more personal reason!
I could spend much time in describing that happy evening; but perhaps,
repeated to less sympathetic ears, the wit might not seem so witty nor
the wisdom so wise as they did to us. At last, however, May said with
a sigh that she must go home; and Gerald proposed that I as well as he
should escort her to the door of the ‘ogress’s castle.’
‘But you must not call Mrs Bowden an ogress,’ protested May, laying
a hand upon her brother’s shoulder; ‘she is very kind to me. Was it
not thoughtful of her to let me come and spend this evening with you,
because I had mentioned a week ago that it was our birthday? She is
always so much interested in what I say of you—and she likes to hear
about you too, Mr Langham,’ added the girl, turning to me.
‘About me!’ I repeated. ‘How does she know of my existence?’
‘Oh, I have mentioned your name often, in speaking of Gerald and his
friends, and she frequently questions me about you. I suppose she
likes you for Gerald’s sake, and Gerald for mine.’