54 Animal Intelligence 



order. On the other hand, if the animal fails to rise above 

 the type in his dealings with the boxes, the observer should 

 confess that his opinion of the animal's intelligence may 

 have been at fault and should look for a correction of it. 



We have in these time-curves a fairly adequate measure 

 of what the ordinary cat can do, and how it does it, and in 

 similar curves soon to be presented a less adequate measure 

 of what a dog may do. If other investigators, especially 

 all amateurs who are interested in animal intelligence, will 

 take other cats and dogs, especially those supposed by own- 

 ers to be extraordinarily intelligent, and experiment with 

 them in this way, we shall soon get a notion of how much 

 variation there is among animals in the direction of more or 

 superior intelligence. The beginning here made is meager 

 but solid. The knowledge it gives needs to be much ex- 

 tended. The variations found in individuals should be 

 correlated, not merely with supposed superiority in intel- 

 ligence, a factor too vague to be very serviceable, but with 

 observed differences in vigor, attention, memory and muscu- 

 lar skill. No phenomena are more capable of exact and 

 thorough investigation by experiment than the associations 

 of animal consciousness. Never will you get a better 

 psychological subject than a hungry cat. When the crude 

 beginnings of this research have been improved and re- 

 placed by more ingenious and adroit experimenters, the 

 results ought to be very valuable. 



Surely every one must agree that no man now has a right 

 to advance theories about what is in animals' minds or to 

 deny previous theories unless he supports his thesis by 

 systematic and extended experiments. My own theories, 

 soon to be proclaimed, will doubtless be opposed by many. 

 I sincerely hope they will, provided the denial is accompa- 

 nied by actual experimental work. In fact, I shall be tempted 



