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An action may be partly instinctive and partly the result of reasoning, but a purely instinctive action never changes except under the influence of reason. A hen sits on her eggs from an instinctive impulse to do so. If chalk ones be substituted for the real eggs she tends them with equal care and will not desert them any sooner than she would the others. And yet in other matters perhaps hens have reasoning powers.

Without the possession of these powers we believe no education of animals would be possible; and we farther believe that the capacity for learning is in exact proportion to the ability to reason. A horse or dog can be readily taught things which a hog can never learn, and in the lower scales of animal life all attempts at education become failures. Under the tuition of man the reasoning powers are undoubtedly developed to an extent to which they would never attain in a state of nature, and by judicious and persistent teaching numerous animals have been educated to an almost startling degree. How this has been done we shall show as we proceed.