It is commonly supposed that brutes are void of imagination. How then are we to account for those appearances during their sleep, which seem to indicate dreaming ? Quippe videbis equos fortes, cum membra jacebunt Id somnis, sudare tamen, spirareque sxpe, Et quasi de palms summas contendere vires, Venantumque canes in molli sxpe quiete Jaetant crura ; tamen subito, vocesque repente Mittunt, et crebras reducunt naribus auras, Ut vestigia si tencant inventa ferarum, &c.
Lees. 1. iv.
'The dreams of these animals, however, may be of such a kind, as not necessarily to imply the exercise of imagination ; and probably they may be excited by some of the simpler processes of the association of ideas. They at least presuppose a faculty of conception.
Whether any of the inferior tribes of animals are ca pable of reasoning or not, has long been a subject of dispute. Most of the ancients admitted that the brutes possess this power ; and it has sometimes been said, that the most familiar facts with regard to their docility, arc specimens of ratiocination, or of deducing conclu sions from the comparison of different ideas. When, for instance, a dog is taught to dance or tumble, he must be allured to obedience, and chastised for inattention. His choice, therefore, is supposed to be determined by such considerations as these : " If I obey, I shall be caressed and fed ; if I disobey, I shall be beaten and starved. It is therefore better for me to obey." It is a simpler and more satisfactory account of this matter, to say, that obedience is associated with an idea of pleasure, and that neglect, or disobedience, is inseparably combined with the idea of pain ; or, in other words, that hope and fear unite their influence with such force as to supersede the necessity of logical deduction. But there is certainly a degree of reason displayed by some of the more sagacious brutes, in pursuing a series of means, with a view to attain some desirable end, and in varying the means employed, according to circum stances. None of them, however, give any unambigu ous proofs of a capacity to investigate truth by a proce dure similar to the reasoning, or induction, by which the human mind presses forward to discovery. Mr Locke ascribes this defect to their inability of " abstracting or making general ideas." They can reason only in parti
cular ideas, (according to his opinion,) and they have no use of any general signs for expressing universal ideas; nor is this owing to the inaptitude of their organs for framing articulate sounds. Many of them can be taught to utter such sounds, but never to apply words with in telligence; and in this incapacity of generalising and of communicating their thoughts by artificial signs, Mr Locke conceives the specific discrimination between them and the human race to consist.
Whatever disadvantages appear to be involved in the want or imperfection of the rational nature, are abun dantly compensated by the substitution of instincts adapted to the situation of every animal. This wise provision supplies the absence of reason, by accommo dating the constitution of all sentient creatures to the laws of matter, and to the several destinations assigned to the different tribes. Some instincts may be described as universal, and as being common to man and other animals, such as the actions of respiration, suction, and swallowing. Others arc peculiar to each race of crea tures. Unlike the processes of reason, they operate with unvarying uniformity in all the individuals of the species, and they attain their ends with absolute infalli bility. Plutarch and some other writers have affirmed, that many of the arts practised by human beings were originally suggested by observations of the instinctive manufactures of other animals. Mr Pope, borrowing this idea from Pliny, has amplified and embellished it with the charms of his inimitable muse, in the third Epistle of the Essay on Man, (v. 169, seq.) See him from Nature rising slow to Art ! To copy Instinct then was Reason's part ; Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake " Go, from the creatures thy instructions take : Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield ; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; Thy arts of building from the bee receive; Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave ; Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. Here too all forms of social union find, And hence let Reason, late, instruct mankind. Here subterranean works and cities see: There towns aerial °tithe waving tree." &c.