Experimental Study of Associative Processes 21 



was sufficient or that our theories about it were surely sound, 

 yet our notion of what occurs when a chick grabs a worm 

 are luminous and infallible compared to our notion of what 

 happens when a kitten runs into the house at the familiar 

 call. The reason that they have satisfied us as well as they 

 have is just that they are so vague. We say that the kitten 

 associates the sound 'kitty kitty' with the experience of 

 nice milk to drink, which does very well for a common-sense 

 answer. It also suffices as a rebuke to those who would 

 have the kitten ratiocinate about the matter, but it fails 

 to tell what real mental content is present. Does the kitten 

 feel "sound of call, memory-image of milk in a saucer in the 

 kitchen, thought of running into the house, a feeling, finally, 

 of 'I will run in' "? Does he perhaps feel only the sound 

 of the bell and an impulse to run in, similar in quality to 

 the impulses which make a tennis player run to and fro 

 when playing ? The word ' association ' may cover a multi- 

 tude of essentially different processes, and when a writer 

 attributes anything that an animal may do to association, 

 his statement has only the negative value of eliminating 

 reasoning on the one hand and instinct on the other. 

 His position is like that of a zoologist who should to-day 

 class an animal among the 'worms.' To give to the word a 

 positive value and several definite possibilities of meaning 

 is one aim of this investigation. 



The importance to comparative psychology in general of 

 a more scientific account of the association-process in ani- 

 mals is evident. Apart from the desirability of knowing 

 all the facts we can, of whatever sort, there is the especial 

 consideration that these associations and consequent habits 

 have an immediate import for biological science. In the 

 higher animals the bodily life and preservative acts are 

 largely directed by these associations. They, and not 



