Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/824

806 peculiar to humanity, one which either does not exist in animals or has been observed to exist among them only in an infinitesimal degree.

This is one of the most obscure and difficult problems which we meet with in animal psychology. A large number of animals live, it is true, in a state of permanent warfare, killing and devouring each other in turns, but how far does this fact imply another—viz., that this internecine slaughter presupposes in animals a clear idea of death—of the extinction of life as the necessary consequence of their actions? How far are these acts of hostility determined by the intention of depriving another animal of life? In other words, have animals a distinct idea of life and death and of the means by which life may be destroyed?

Let us examine the animals which are considered to be the most ferocious among the mammals—viz., the feline tribe. It is well known that the lion, which attacks another animal in order to make a meal of him, almost always kills his prey by seizing it by the neck and crushing between his teeth the other's cervical vertebræ. Further, the lion's action in this maneuver is so certain that he generally kills the animal at the first attempt. Are we justified in inferring from this fact that the lion has a clear idea of life and death, and that he crunches between his teeth his adversary's vertebæ with the distinct idea of killing him, aware that by so doing he is depriving him of life? I do not think so. When he treats his prey thus he probably merely remembers from former experience that the animal will offer no further resistance and may therefore be devoured in peace—a far simpler idea than those complex differentiated notions implied in a perception of the difference between life and death.

That, as a matter of fact, the lion does not possess the aforesaid idea of life as distinguished from death, and of the possibility of inflicting the latter, may be seen from his behavior when he springs upon a hunter who has wounded him—not to devour the hunter but in self-defense. If he had a distinct idea of life and death and of the means at his disposal of inflicting death, this is surely the occasion in which he should display it. On the contrary, however, it usually happens that when a lion springs upon a hunter that has wounded him and knocks him down, he bites him two or three times, wherever he can; and, having thus satisfied his rage, he goes away, taking no further heed of his enemy, whose ultimate fate depends upon what part of the body the lion has bitten him. If the bite has injured some vital organ, the unfortunate hunter succumbs to his injuries; but if it has been inflicted upon some secondary organ only, he may escape from a most critical position with comparatively little damage. Hence, although the lion's claws are as keen as razors and his