Instinct or Reason

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 24, 1879

Instinct or Reason.

A SMALL English terrier belonging to a friend had been taught to ring for the servant. To test if the dog knew why it rang the bell, he was told to do so while the girl was in the room. The little fellow looked up in the most intelligent manner at the person giving the order (his master or mistress, I forget which), then at the servant, and refused to obey, although the order was repeated more than once. The servant left the room, and in a few moments afterwards the dog rang the bell immediately on being told to do so.

I give the following, as told by my wife, now dead, who personally witnessed the transaction on various occasions. At her sister's house in Kent, a donkey which, when not employed by the children grazed in the field with some cows, was in the regular habit of acting as follows: At the hour for the cows to come home to be milked, the donkey lifted the latch of the field gate, opened and held back the gate—which would otherwise swing closed again—till all the cows passed out, then allowed the gate to shut, and went home with the cows. Of course no one taught the donkey to do this, but the quadruped gave the biped a practical lesson.