290 Animal Intelligence 



binations, tends to thereby acquire an independent life 

 of its own. We show children six lines, six dots, six peas, 

 six pieces of paper, etc., and thus create the definite feeling 

 of sixness. Out of the gross feelings of a certain number of 

 lines, of dots, etc., we evolve the definite elementary feeling 

 of sixness by making the 'six' aspect of the situations 

 appear in a number of different connections. We learn to 

 feel whiteness as a definite idea by seeing white paper, white 

 cloth, white eggs, white plates, etc. We learn to feel 

 the meaning of but or in or notwithstanding by feeling the 

 meanings of many total phrases containing each of them. 

 Now in this general law by which different associates for the 

 same elementary process elevate it out of its position as 

 an undifferentiated fragment of a gross total feeling, we 

 have, I think, the manner in which the vague feelings of 

 the nine-months-old infant become the definite ideas of 

 the five-year-old boy, the manner in which in the race 

 the animal mind has evolved into the human, and the ex- 

 planation of the service performed by the increase in the 

 delicacy of structure of the human brain and the conse- 

 quent increase in the number of associations. 



The bottle to the six-months-old infant is a vague sense- 

 impression which the infant does not think about or indeed 

 in the common meanings of the words perceive or remem- 

 ber or imagine. Its presence does not arouse ideas, but 

 action. It is not to him a thing so big, or so shaped, or 

 so heavy, but is just a vaguely sizable thing to be reached 

 for, grabbed and sucked. Like the lower animals, with the 

 exception that as he grows a little older he reacts in very 

 many more ways, the child feels things in gross in a way 

 to lead to direct reactions. Vague sense-impressions and 

 impulses make up his mental life. The bottle, which to a 

 dog would be a thing to smell at and paw, to a kitten a 



