Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/827

Rh victory absolutely diabolical." Here, too, it is evident that even the strongest baboon is not guided by the idea of destroying its adversary; it is not aware that by compressing the dog's throat it might strangle or suffocate him, that by biting in certain parts of the body it might cause him to bleed to death. It simply allows itself to be carried away by an impulse of fury, which is vented in bites and scratches—sometimes, it is true, of terrific violence—which, however, do not easily cause death, precisely because all these actions, however violent, are not co-ordinated in an end, viz., that of killing the adversary—by a clear idea of death and of the means of inflicting it.

I have cited the above examples to show that in one of the strongest felines and among the strongest and most intelligent of the anthropoid apes the existence of the idea of death and of the means of inflicting it can not be admitted, and that hence the slaughter of one of these animals by another, whether of its own or of another species, can never be the result of a conscious act of volition. In their struggles, both among themselves and with other creatures, their aim is never to kill, but merely to bite and claw; in short, to give vent to their internal rage by violent acts as impulse may direct. And if such acts do sometimes result in death, this fact must be regarded as essentially due to accident, and according as the wound happens to be inflicted, with more or less severity, upon a vital part of the body. But the capacity, predetermined by conscious will, to slay another creature of the same or of a different species seems to be non-existent; and hence all the ferocity of these animals is impulsive, the result of impetus, never a matter of reflection or of will; it is confined between narrow limits, in that it lacks that idea of the possibility of destroying the life of other creatures which has opened such a boundless horizon to the ferocity of the human race.

Can this generalization, which facts demonstrate to be true as regards the lion and some of the primates, be extended to the whole animal creation? To make a similar assertion would undoubtedly be rash; the facts which have been noted are not numerous, and we know little or nothing of the psychology of ferocity even among animals like the tiger, which have, as wild beasts, a terrible reputation, or among others which are extraordinarily intelligent, such as the elephant. Nevertheless I believe that, as we have been able to observe this fact in one of the most feared of carnivora and also among the most intelligent and those nearest to man, we are justified in asserting that the idea of death and the possibility of inflicting it by artificial means in the animal world is at least very indistinct, scarcely dawning, uncertain, and that if any species has arrived at such an idea, it is in such cases a mere dim and blurred outline.