22 Animal Intelligence 



instinct, make the animal use the best feeding grounds, 

 sleep in the same lair, avoid new dangers and profit by new 

 changes in nature. Their higher development in mammals 

 is a chief factor in the supremacy of that group. This, 

 however, is a minor consideration. The main purpose of 

 the study of the animal mind is to learn the development of 

 mental life down through the phylum, to trace in particular 

 the origin of human faculty. In relation to this chief pur- 

 pose of comparative psychology the associative processes 

 assume a role predominant over that of sense-powers or 

 instinct, for in a study of the associative processes lies the 

 solution of the problem. Sense-powers and instincts have 

 changed by addition and supersedence, but the cognitive 

 side of consciousness has changed not only in quantity but 

 also in quality. Somehow out of these associative processes 

 have arisen human consciousnesses with their sciences and 

 arts and religions. The association of ideas proper, imagi- 

 nation, memory, abstraction, generalization, judgment, in- 

 ference, have here their source. And in the metamorphosis 

 the instincts, impulses, emotions and sense-impressions 

 have been transformed out of their old natures. For the 

 origin and development of human faculty we must look 

 to these processes of association in lower animals. Not 

 only then does this department need treatment more, but 

 promises to repay the worker better. 



Although no work done in this field is enough like the 

 present investigation to require an account of its results, 

 the method hitherto in use invites comparison by its contrast 

 and, as I believe, by its faults. In the first place, most of 

 the books do not give us a psychology, but rather a eulogy, 

 of animals. They have all been about animal intelligence, 

 never about animal stupidity. Though a writer derides 

 the notion that animals have reason, he hastens to add that 



