consequence of the special nature of the intellect of the brutes, which we
have explained is the perfect accordance of their consciousness with their
environment. Between the brute and the external world there is nothing,
but between us and the external world there is always our thought about
it, which makes us often inapproachable to it, and it to us. Only in the
case of children and very primitive men is this wall of partition so thin
that in order to see what goes on in them we only need to see what goes on
round about them. Therefore the brutes are incapable alike of purpose and
dissimulation; they reserve nothing. In this respect the dog stands to the
man in the same relation as a glass goblet to a metal one, and this helps
greatly to endear the dog so much to us, for it affords us great pleasure
to see all those inclinations and emotions which we so often conceal
displayed simply and openly in him. In general, the brutes always play, as
it were, with their hand exposed; and therefore we contemplate with so
much pleasure their behaviour towards each other, both when they belong to
the same and to different species. It is characterised by a certain stamp
of innocence, in contrast to the conduct of men, which is withdrawn from
the innocence of nature by the entrance of reason, and with it of prudence
or deliberation. Hence human conduct has throughout the stamp of intention
or deliberate purpose, the absence of which, and the consequent
determination by the impulse of the moment, is the fundamental
characteristic of all the action of the brutes. No brute is capable of a
purpose properly so-called. To conceive and follow out a purpose is the
prerogative of man, and it is a prerogative which is rich in consequences.
Certainly an instinct like that of the bird of passage or the bee, still
more a permanent, persistent desire, a longing like that of the dog for
its absent master, may present the appearance of a purpose, with which,
however, it must not be confounded. Now all this has its ultimate ground
in the relation between the human and the brute intellect, which may also
be thus expressed: The brutes have only _direct_ knowledge, while we, in
addition to this, have _indirect_ knowledge; and the advantage which in
many things—for example, in trigonometry and analysis, in machine work
instead of hand work, &c.—indirect has over direct knowledge appears here
also. Thus again we may say: The brutes have only a _single_ intellect, we
a _double_ intellect, both perceptive and thinking, and the operation of
the two often go on independently of each other. We perceive one thing,
and we think another. Often, again, they act upon each other. This way of
putting the matter enables us specially to understand that natural
openness and naivete of the brutes, referred to above, as contrasted with
the concealment of man.