n8 Animal Intelligence 



quickness was noted in Cats i and 3 when put into B (O at 

 back) after learning A (O at front). Moreover, the loops 

 were not alike. The loop in A was of smaller wire, covered 

 with a bluish thread, while the loop in B was covered with 

 a black rubber compound, the diameter of the loop being 

 three times that of A's loop. 



If any advocate of reason in animals has read so far, I 

 doubt not that his heart has leaped with joy at these two 

 preceding paragraphs. "How," he will say, "can you ex- 

 plain these facts without that prime factor in human reason, 

 association by similarity? Surely they show the animal 

 perceiving likenesses and acting from general ideas." This 

 is the very last thing that they show. Let us see why they do 

 not show this and what they do show. He who thinks that 

 these animals had a general notion of a loop-like thing as the 

 thing to be clawed, that they felt the loop in B, different 

 as it was in size, color and position, to be still a loop, to 

 have the essential quality of the other, must needs pre- 

 suppose that the cat has a clear, accurate sensation and 

 representation of both. Only if the cat discriminates can 

 it later associate by noticing similarities. This is what such 

 thinkers do presuppose. A bird, for instance, dives in the 

 same manner into a river of yellow water, a pond or an ocean. 

 It has a general notion, they say, of water. It knows that 

 river water is one thing and pond water another thing, but it 

 knows that both are water, ergo, fit to dive into. The cat 

 who reacts to a loop of small wire of a blue color knows 

 just what that loop is, and when it sees a different loop, 

 knows its differences, but knows also its likeness, and reacts 

 to the essential. Thus crediting the cat with our differen- 

 tiation and perception of individuality, they credit it with 

 our conceptions and perceptions of similarity. Unless the 

 animal has the first, there is no reason to suppose the last. 



