Читать книгу Intelligence in Plants and Animals онлайн

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But in the popularization of natural science no man has done more than Rev. J. G. Wood in his numerous works. Not only have his writings created in thousands a taste for nature-studies, but they have been no less the means of cultivating the observation, awakening enthusiasm and directing effort in the lines of original research and discovery. Certainly no one, as his many writings so abundantly attest, possessed a larger fund of knowledge concerning the powers and capabilities of the lower animals than this author. Few knew our domestic animals better than he, and none was more capable of judging of the mental and moral status which they should occupy in the world of animals. It is true that men and women, eminent in theology, literature and science, had expressed a belief in the idea that the “latent powers and capacities” of the lower animals might be developed in a future life, but no one had felt secure enough in this belief to warrant more than a passing thought or two upon the subject.