LAWS OF INTERNAL CHANGE 103 



has one to assume that the actions of an animal taken rudely 

 from its natural habitat and as rudely imprisoned in some im- 

 provised cage are in any scientific sense an expression of its 

 normal behavior, either physical or psychical ? Is it within 

 the range of the calculus of probability that conclusions drawn 

 from observations made upon an animal in the shallow confines 

 of a finger-bowl, but whose habitat has been the open sea, are 

 wholly trustworthy ? It is no part of my purpose to discredit 

 the laboratory or laboratory appliances as related to such in- 

 vestigations. They are indispensable. But at the same time 

 let it be recognized that they are at best but artificial make- 

 shifts whose values, unless checked up by constant appeal to 

 nature, must be taken at something of discount. ... It 

 seems to the writer that until one has been able to place his 

 specimens under conditions approximating the natural, or 

 has at least brought them to a state of semi-domestication, 

 where in food-taking, evidence of health, etc., they are at ease, 

 he has small right to dogmatize as to conclusions, or presume 

 to make such conclusions the basis of so-called laws of behavior. 

 Not a little of recent investigation along the lines of behavior has 

 been vitiated at just this point, and must be repeated to be made 

 trustworthy. The amazing mass of contradictory results which 

 has loaded the literature of recent years is attributable to some 

 extent to this misfortune." C. W. HARGITT (1912). 



"We are apt to contrast the extremes of instinct and in- 

 telligence, to emphasize the blindness and inflexibility of the one 

 and the consciousness and freedom of the other. It is like con- 

 trasting the extremes of light and dark and forgetting all the 

 transitional degrees of twilight. . . . Instinct is blind; so 

 is the highest human wisdom blind. The distinction is one of 

 degree. There is no absolute blindness on the one side, and no 

 absolute wisdom on the other." C. O. WHITMAN (1899). 



The precedence here given to changes in behavior 

 is in harmony with the emphasis which is put upon 



