Sc me dogs display strategic and ingenious talents — a slyness and artrulnL;s 22 (337} 338 THE HEARTHSTONE ; OR, LIFE AT HOME, not always unamiable and often very useful to their human protectors and allies — which have puzzled those who maintain that there is a definite line between human reason and the cunning and instinct of the brute. There are thousands of instances on record in which neither cunning nor instinct completely expresses the dog's mind. He reasons sometimes on strictly logical principles, and is not so entirely a stranger as his slower human competitors in the arts of ratiocination deem him to the inductive philosophy. He more fre- quently than his human schoolmates suppresses the major premiss in his syllogisms, and prefers to reason from the particular to the uni- versal rather than, as man does, from the universal to the particular. He infers laws from phenomena, and looks for the accustomed dinner- bell with as much punctuality as if he carried a watch. The unerring instinct of dogs renders them of priceless value to lost wanderers, and a case illustrating this point is that of the unfortunate survivors of the wrecked "Jeannette." So long as Lieutenant DeLong and his party kept their dogs they had a chance of saving their lives through these faithful friends, but when the dogs were killed and eaten their last hope was gone. They had no means of finding their way to food through the power of scent, which the dogs possessed. But the analogy must not be pursued too far. Sometimes what is called instinct in a brute resembles rather a supernatural revelation than any consecutive process like reasoning. One summer's morn- ing it was decided in a family that out of seven little kittens one only should be kept. At the breakfast-table the awful question upon which the fate of the six innocents depended was discussed by the . Christian and kind-hearted family. The paterfamilias said : " My dear, we cannot keep so many. Drowning is not torture — " but, "O papa, papa, you would not drown the pretty creatures : it would be so cruel ! " cried eagerly one after another of the domestic jury of little ones. The crest-fallen judge, astonished to find himself voted a monster of cruelty by his own brood, said : " Well, well, children, settle it among yourselves," and mamma was elected judge by them in place of the stern parent who thought drowning no torture. Now, PETS IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 339 these kittens who were thus, unknown to themselves, being tried for their lives, had never yet meandered outside the garden gate. The extent of their geographical knowledge was the grass-plat, and of a world beyond the kitchen fire they had never speculated. Mamma decided that as this was the morning upon which a travelling wagon would call on its way to the next station ten miles off, the six little kittens should be tied together in a bag and carried some miles away when they should be turned loose, like little Ishmaels without a Hagar, feline Arabs to find a home in the desert, in an open plain. The driver did precisely as he was bidden. The kittens left " the warm precincts of the genial day," and, securely tied in a bag which was placed at the bottom of the wagon, were driven away into the wide, wide world. The driver duly reported the turning the kittens loose upon the common, some eight miles away.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Some dogs display strategic and ingenious talents — a slyness and artfulness 22 (337} not always unamiable and often very useful to their human protectors and allies — which have puzzled those who maintain that there is a definite line between human reason and the cunning and instinct of the brute. There are thousands of instances on record in which neither cunning nor instinct completely expresses the dog's mind. He reasons sometimes on strictly logical principles, and is not so entirely a stranger as his slower human competitors in the arts of ratiocination deem him to the inductive philosophy. He more frequently than his human schoolmates suppresses the major premiss in his syllogisms, and prefers to reason from the particular to the universal rather than, as man does, from the universal to the particular. He infers laws from phenomena, and looks for the accustomed dinnerbell with as much punctuality as if he carried a watch. The unerring instinct of dogs renders them of priceless value to lost wanderers, and a case illustrating this point is that of the unfortunate survivors of the wrecked "Jeannette." So long as Lieutenant DeLong and his party kept their dogs they had a chance of saving their lives through these faithful friends, but when the dogs were killed and eaten their last hope was gone. They had no means of finding their way to food through the power of scent, which the dogs possessed. But the analogy must not be pursued too far. Sometimes what is called instinct in a brute resembles rather a supernatural revelation than any consecutive process like reasoning. One summer's morning it was decided in a family that out of seven little kittens one only should be kept. At the breakfast-table the awful question upon which the fate of the six innocents depended was discussed by the . Christian and kind-hearted family. The paterfamilias said : " My dear, we cannot keep so many. Drowning is not torture — " but, "O papa, papa, you would not drown the pretty creatures : it would be so cruel ! " cried eagerly one after another of the domestic jury of little ones. The crest-fallen judge, astonished to find himself voted a monster of cruelty by his own brood, said : " Well, well, children, settle it among yourselves," and mamma was elected judge by them in place of the stern parent who thought drowning no torture. Now, these kittens who were thus, unknown to themselves, being tried for their lives, had never yet meandered outside the garden gate. The extent of their geographical knowledge was the grass-plat, and of a world beyond the kitchen fire they had never speculated. Mamma decided that as this was the morning upon which a travelling wagon would call on its way to the next station ten miles off, the six little kittens should be tied together in a bag and carried some miles away when they should be turned loose, like little Ishmaels without a Hagar, feline Arabs to find a home in the desert, in an open plain. The driver did precisely as he was bidden. The kittens left " the warm precincts of the genial day," and, securely tied in a bag which was placed at the bottom of the wagon, were driven away into the wide, wide world. The driver duly reported the turning the kittens loose upon the common, some eight miles away.

The hearthstone; or, Life at home