The question has often been asked, Do animals think? I believe that some of them think a great deal. Many of them are like children in their sports. We notice this to be true very often with dogs and cats; but it is true with other animals as well.

    Some birds are very lively in their sports; and the same is true with some insects. The ants, hardworking as they are, have their times for play. They run races; they wrestle; and sometimes they have mock fights together. Very busy must be their thoughts while engaged in these sports.

    There are many animals, however, that never play; their thoughts seem to be of the more sober kind. We never see frogs engaged in sport. They all the time appear to be very grave. The same is true of the owl, who always looks as if he were considering some important question.

    Animals think much while building their houses. The bird searches for what it can use in building its nest, and in doing this it thinks. The beavers think as they build their dams and their houses. They think in getting their materials, and also in arranging them, and in plastering them together with mud. Some spiders build houses which could scarcely have been made except by some thinking creature.

    As animals think, they learn. Some learn more than others. The parrot learns to talk, though in some other respects it is quite stupid. The mocking bird learns to imitate a great many different sounds. The horse is not long in learning many things connected with the word which he has to do. The shepherd dog does not know as much about most things as some other dogs, and yet he understands very well how to take care of sheep.

    Though animals think and learn, they do not make any real improvement in their ways of doing things, as men do. Each kind of bird has its own way of building a nest, and it is always the same way. And so of other animals. They have no new fashions, and learn none from each other. But men, as you know, are always finding new ways of building houses, and improved methods of doing almost all kinds of labor.

    Many of the things that animals know how to do they seem to know either without learning, or in some way which we cannot understand. They are said to do such things by instinct; but no one can tell what instinct is. It is by this instinct that birds build their nests and beavers their dams and huts. If these things were all planned and thought out just as men plan new houses, there would be some changes in the fashions of them, and some improvements.

    I have spoken of the building instinct of beavers. An English gentleman caught a young one and put him at first in a cage. After a while he let him out in a room where there was a great variety of things. As soon as he was let out he began to exercise his building instinct. He gathered together whatever he could find, brushes, baskets, boots, clothes, sticks, bits of coal, etc., and arranged them as if to build a dam. Now, if he had had his wits about him, he would have known that there was no use in building a dam where there was no water.

    It is plain that, while animals learn about things by their senses as we do, they do not think nearly as much about what they learn, and this is the reason why they do not improve more rapidly. Even the wisest of them, as the elephant and the dog, do not think very much about what they see and hear. Nor is this all. There are some things that we understand, but about which animals know nothing. They have no knowledge of anything that happens outside of their own observation. Their minds are so much unlike ours that they do not know the difference between right and wrong.

    人們會經常問到這樣的問題：動物會思考嗎？我想念有些動物很會動腦筋思考的。很多動物玩起來像小孩子們是一樣的。我們注意到，這一點就貓狗說確實真是這樣的，而對其他一些動物來說也是如此。

    有些鳥類在玩起來的時候是很活躍的，有些昆蟲類也是如此。螞蟻，雖然干起活來很勤奮，可是它們也能抽出時間來玩。螞蟻參加各種賽跑，摔跤，有時還在一起模擬戰斗。在螞蟻從事這些活動的時候，他的思想肯定很活躍。

    可是，也有些動物從來也不玩耍，它們的思想性格令人覺得好像是屬于比較嚴肅冷靜的那種類型。我們從來沒見過蛙類在一起玩耍。蛙類總是令人覺得很嚴肅的樣子。貓頭鷹也是這樣：總讓人看起來好像貓頭鷹老是在考慮很重要的問題的樣子。

    動物在筑巢或壘窩的時候就會考慮得比較多。鳥在筑巢時就要搜索它能用得上的材料，在做這類工作時，鳥兒就在動腦筋。河貍在修水壩或壘窩的時候也會動腦子。河貍在尋找建筑材料，在把撒謊到的材料考慮怎樣安放以及用泥土把這些材料粘合到一起時都在動腦子思考。有些種類的蜘蛛所壘的窩，除了有些思想的動物而外，是很少有什么動物能壘成的。

    動物不但會思考，而且也會學習。有些動物比其他動物更關于學習。鸚鵡雖然在別的方面很蠢，可是會學說話。美國南方的模仿鳥會模仿很多不同的音響。馬不用很長時間就能學會跟讓它干的活兒有關的許多東西。雖然牧羊犬不懂得基他種狗所懂的絕大部分事物，可是牧羊犬卻精通于怎樣看護好羊群。

    雖然動物會思考也會學習，可是卻不能像人那樣，對學會的事物作出任何真正的改革。每種鳥都有自己的筑巢方法，但總是用的同樣的方式，互相之間也不學習。可是，你知道，人類就不是這樣，人類總是要尋求新的蓋房子的方式，人類總是要改進作一些事情的方式方法。

    有許多事情，似乎是動物都知道怎么做。它們秘書科不用學就會或者是用我們還沒了解到的方法就掌握了。據說它們都是憑著本能去做這類事情，都能像人類設計新房子那樣，動物也能有周密的計劃和仔細的考慮，那么動物的巢穴在式樣上也會有所變化和改進的。

    我提到了河貍的建筑上的本能。一位英國先生抓到了只小河貍，起先把它放到一只籠子里了，過了一會兒又把它放出來，放進了一間里面有很多種不同的東西的房間里。剛把這只小河貍放出來，它就開始施展了它筑壩的本能。它把凡是能找到的東西：刷子、筐子、靴子、衣服、棍子、煤塊等等都集中到一起，然后來安排這些東西，好像要筑水壩似的。那么，如果它真的有頭有腦的話，它就該知道，在這沒有水的地方筑水壩是根本沒用的。

    道理很明顯，當動物像我們人一樣在憑各種感官學習事物時，動物對所學的事物幾乎不多加考慮，這就是之所以動物不能較迅速地提高的原因。即使是像大象和小狗這樣最聰明的動物，也不能對它們的所見所聞加以思考。事情還遠不止如此。有些事情我們能懂，而這些事情，動物根本一竅不通。動物對于發生在自己的視野之外一切事物一無所知。動物的頭腦與我們人類的頭腦是很不相同的，所以動物的頭腦就分辨不出真偽或對錯。