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of animals 'destined for any of the learned professions' is to make trial of the capacity and disposition, and to select such individuals as appear to be most docile and submissive. Monkeys are very successfully chosen as performers at exhibitions simply by testing the readiness with which they give their attention to any unusual proceedings carried out in their presence. A monkey which is so fitful and discursive that its attention cannot be fixed is of no use whatever to trainers.

Dr. Lindsay considers that domesticated and captive animals, when kindly dealt with by man, lose their desire for freedom because they are sensible of the advantages which they derive from their dependent state. A careful study of the lives of the carriage horses of London, however, certainly tends to a very different interpretation of the matter. If these animals have warm stables, a plentiful supply of hay and corn, and gentle and kindly handling by their attendants, they certainly become reconciled to their captivity, drag their carriages unresistingly through the crowded and stone-paved thoroughfares during the appointed hours, and restrain the inherent impetuosity of their active limbs within the legitimate bounds of prancing and high action. But nothing can well be further from the truth than that these horses voluntarily and knowingly barter the free life of the pasture for the drudgery of the streets and the imprisonment of the stables, or that they acquiesce in their fate because they are conscious of the advantages of shelter and corn. The life of the domesticated horse is perhaps on the whole the most telling proof that could be adduced of the absence of high faculties of mind in this class. It indicates in the most striking way that in the lower animals the so-called mental faculties are altogether comprised within the domain of habit and automatic action. The wellbroken horse dreams through its uneventful life, obedient to the suggestions of its senses, and to the chains of association that are imposed upon it by man. The secret of its docility is the readiness with which it acquires and repeats the habits that are established for it by man, and its inability to originate purposes of its own. Every action in its useful life may be traced to the influence of the human and not of the equine brain, until it begins to kick, and then almost always its kicking can be also ascribed to some accidental derangement in the links of its automatic chain. It will assuredly be an ill day for the cab and carriage service of London when the horses begin to reason upon the advantages which they possess. An entirely similar remark must be made in reference to the proceedings of trained elephants, when they so cleverly give their

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assistance to capture their wild brethren of the forest. are continually adduced as marvellous proofs of the mental capacity of these animals. But their testimony rather is to passive docility and proneness to act upon automatic suggestion, than to any power of independent thought. The elephant has a wider range and a greater versatility of associated perceptions and impulses than the horse, but it is very nearly as much under the influence of automatic habit, and can be played upon by its human manipulator with nearly the same precision and certainty of result. Dr. Lindsay in one place refers to the dread which the ox sometimes exhibits for the shambles. As a general rule, the ox seems to be marvellously unconscious of the fate which awaits him when he is unresistingly led into the slaughterhouse, and in his death testifies very forcibly to the same truth of the unreasoning and automatic character of the mental operations of the animal. The dog, of all the lower animals, seems to approach the most nearly to the confines of debateable ground in the initiation of apparently independent acts. But very much of the effect which he produces in this particular may in reality be referred to the still larger range and to the still greater versatility of his trains of sense-derived impressions, and to his position, in his unbroken life of domestication, as the dependent and intimate friend of man, and must be taken to indicate impressibility and retentiveness rather than true originating power. The entire subject of the mental life of the lower animals is one that is full of interest for thoughtful men, and this is a charm which is not at all diminished by the fact that there are still mysterious depths in it that have not yet been fathomed either by physical or metaphysical methods of research. Dr. Lindsay's book is a valuable contribution to this branch of scientific enquiry on account of the vast mass of information which it brings within easy and manageable reach for independent examination and review. But it is not too much to say that the author has not succeeded in the establishment of his dogma of the mental equality of the lower animals with man. His stories are amusing, but his arguments are futile, and his conclusions preposterous.

ART. III.—1. The Russians on the Amur. By E. G. RAVENSTEIN. London: 1861.

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2. The Eastern Seas. A Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Dwarf.' By Captain R. W. BAX, R.N. London : 1875. 3. Russian Development and our Naval and Military Position in the North Pacific. By Captain J. C. R. COLOMB. Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, vol. xxi. London: 1877.

4. Les Colonies Françaises. Par PAUL GAFFAREL, Professeur à la Faculté des Lettres de Dijon. Paris: 1880.

THE

HE rapid growth and present wealth and importance of our Australasian colonies are amongst the most striking features of Queen Victoria's reign. Her Majesty had been several years on the throne when, as has been remarked, New South Wales-then including Victoria and Queensland-was a 'feeble settlement, still troubled by a residuum of transported 'criminals.' The English population of our colonial possessions in all parts of the world in the year of the Great Exhibition -a more intelligible date, perhaps, than the figures 1851was not much over two millions. The colonies in the South Pacific alone now contain nearly three millions of inhabitants of European descent. Their united revenues are greater than that of many an ancient and important state in Europe. The total value of their imports and exports is nearly a hundred millions sterling. The statistics of their realised wealth, of their railways, their telegraphs, their post-offices, and their shipping, compare favourably with those of many far earliersettled communities. Important as they are, however, and closely as they are connected with the mother country by the ties of commerce as well as of nationality and loyal affection, our intercourse with them includes but a part, and not the greater part, of our commercial interests in the Pacific Ocean. The exchange of commodities-exclusive of bullion-between the United Kingdom and our great dependencies at the Antipodes reaches in money value a total of about forty millions of pounds sterling. With our other possessions and the foreign countries which may be taken as belonging to the Pacific 'system,' we have a trade reaching a value of nearly sixty millions. In fact, about one-sixth of the whole external commerce of Great Britain is carried on with the states and colonies which compose it.

The system, hydrographically and strategically considered,

may be said to extend from the Straits of Malacca on the west to the American coast on the east, and from Russian Tartary and the Amoor to Southern Chili and Tasmania. It comprises the whole sea-board of the Chinese Empire and of Western America, north and south, besides the great Dutch, French, and Spanish colonies. Our business relations with these countries are intimate and extensive. With the treaty ports of China and with Hong-kong we exchange annually upwards of twenty million pounds' worth of goods. With Japan we do a business of over three millions, with the Philippines of more than two, and with the Dutch islands three and a half. With French Cochin-China, Siam, and our Straits settlements our yearly trade amounts to close on five. On the other side of the ocean the figures of our commerce with the Spanish American Republics amount to about twelve millions; whilst a still larger sum would represent the value of our increasing intercourse with California and of our transactions with the remaining countries.

These figures, large as they are, do not exhaust the enumeration of our interests in the Pacific. Of the great carrying trade between the ports that line its coasts, and from them to other quarters of the globe, we enjoy an ample share. In the year 1877, exclusive of the coasting trade, the tonnage of ships entered and cleared in the Australasian ports was 6,394,529 British, and 608,963, or less than one-tenth, foreign. About four-fifths of the transport of commodities to and from the Chinese Empire by sea are effected in vessels carrying the British flag. Lines of steamers flying the same ensign pass and repass accoss the South Pacific from Panama to the Antipodes, along the coast of South America, and between Japan and China and our possessions in Australia and Malacca. In addition to these must be taken into account the great trade between our colonies throughout the world and the several Pacific States on both sides of the ocean, and the vast quantities of food for our home population which come to us from San Francisco, in order to form a correct estimate of the magnitude of our interests throughout that immense area.

The enormous Pacific Ocean occupies nearly one half of the whole surface of the globe, its extent being greater than that of all the dry land put together. Other European nations besides ourselves possess important dependencies in its western portion, near which our own colonies are situated or our chief trade routes run. Between the Straits settlements and Hongkong lies the great French colony of Cochin-China, which if recent reports are to be trusted-will be soon extended up

to the frontier of China proper by the annexation of the still 'protected' empire of Annam. In a former number of this Journal* an account has been given of this rising French dependency, in whose fertile fields is to be found the securest granary of the crowded denizens of the southern provinces of the Middle Kingdom. The whole of our China and Japan trade passes along its coasts, and at an easy distance from the mouth of the river on which the capital, Saïgon, stands. A few hundred miles from the coast of Queensland lie the islands which make up the New Caledonia group, which have been in the hands of the French since 1853. Our newly acquired possession, Fiji, lies between them and the cluster of islands in the South Pacific, Taïti, Tuamotu, and the Marquesas, which last are also dependencies of France. The Dutch Indies of the Archipelago are neighbours of our settlements in the Straits of Malacca, and at Labuan. Portugal still retains a memory of her former conquests in the island of Timor. The great group of the Spanish Philippines lines one of the old routes to the Chinese ports followed in the days of sailing vessels during the adverse monsoon, but now less and less used as the trade continues to pass yearly into the hands of steamship owners. On the other side our colony of British Columbia marches with the territory of the United States both on the north and on the south. Colonial possessions of all the maritime powers, with the exception of the British province just named, lie only in the western and southern portions of the Pacific, a fact due to the peculiarity of the distribution of the islands which break its surface. Along the whole eastern side, from Vancouver to the Straits of Magellan, there is a wide belt of water, in which islands rarely occur. This circumstance tends to complicate considerably the question of providing coaling stations for the steam fleets which are already beginning to traverse its great spaces, and for the squadrons to which some day or other the rapidly increasing commerce may have to look for protection.

One of the most powerful of European nations has for many years had a footing on the shores of the Pacific; though, having first made her way to them by land, her possessions are continental rather than insular. Russia is the owner of great tracts of coast on the North Pacific; and though of late years she has resigned her American territory to the United States, with the adjoining group of the Aleutian islands, she has compensated herself by extending the southern limit of her

* Edinburgh Review, No. ccci., The French in Indo-China.'

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