The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

A MEASURE FOR ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. The intelligence of an animal may be estimated by taking into account, separately, its mental qualities, about as follows: 1. General knowledge of surrounding conditions. 2. Powers of independent observation and reasoning. 3. Memory. 4. Comprehension under tuition. 5. Accuracy in the execution of man's orders. Closely allied to these are the moral qualities which go to make up an animal's temperament and disposition, about as follows: 1. Amiability, which guarantees security to its associates. 2. Patience, or submission to discipline and training. 3. Courage, which gives self-confidence and steadiness. 4. A disposition to obedience, with cheerfulness. All normal vertebrate animals exercise their intelligence in accordance with their own rules of logic. Had they not been able to do so, it is reasonable to suppose that they could never have developed into vertebrates, reaching even up to man himself. According to the laws of logic, this proposition is no more open to doubt or dispute than is the existence of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. But few persons have seen the Canyon, and far fewer ever have proven its existence by descending to its bottom; but none the less Reason admonishes all of us that the great chasm exists, and is not a debatable question. To men and women who really know the vertebrate animals by contact with some of them upon their own levels, the reasoning power of the latter is not a debatable question. The only real question is: how far does their intelligence carry them? It is with puzzled surprise that we have noted the curious diligence of the professors of animal psychology in always writing of "animal behavior," and never of old-fashioned, common-sense animal intelligence. Can it be possible that any one of them really refuses to concede to the wild animal the possession of a mind, and a working intelligence?