I doubt not that the
dog is considerably surprised when he hears his master's voice coming
out of a box.
The adult savage, on his first introduction to a telephone, rushes
around to the adjoining room to find the man who is talking through
the partition. Is this act instinctive? No. Out of his limited
experience, out of his limited knowledge of physics, he reasons that
the only explanation possible is that a man is in the other room
talking through the partition.
But that savage cannot be fooled by a hand-mirror. We must go lower
down in the animal scale, to the monkey. The monkey swiftly learns
that the monkey it sees is not in the glass, wherefore it reaches
craftily behind the glass. Is this instinct? No. It is rudimentary
reasoning. Lower than the monkey in the scale of brain is the robin,
and the robin fights its reflection in the window-pane. Now climb
with me for a space. From the robin to the monkey, where is the
impassable gulf? and where is the impassable gulf between the monkey
and the feeding-child? between the feeding-child and the savage who
seeks the man behind the partition? ay, and between the savage and
the astute financiers Mrs.
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