Experimental Study of Associative Processes 67 



should stand for the mammalian mind in general, barring the 

 primates. My second reason is that I hate to burden the 

 reader with the disgusting rhetoric which would result if 

 I had to insert particularizations and reservations at every 

 step. The word * animal' is too useful, rhetorically, to be 

 sacrificed. Finally, inasmuch as most of my theorizing 

 will be in the line of denying certain relatively high functions 

 to animals, the evidence from cats and dogs is sufficient, 

 for they are from among the most intelligent animals, and 

 functions of the kind to be discussed, if absent in their 

 case, are probably absent from the others. 



REASONING OR INFERENCE 



The first great question is whether or not animals are ever 

 led to do any of their acts by reasoning. Do they ever con- 

 clude from inference that a certain act will produce a certain 

 desired result, and so do it ? The best opinion has been that 

 they do not. The best interpretation of even the most 

 extraordinary performances of animals has been that they 

 were the result of accident and association or imitation. 

 But it has after all been only opinion and interpretation, 

 and the opposite theory persistently reappears in the litera- 

 ture of the subject. So, although it is in a way superfluous to 

 give the coup de grace to the despised theory that animals 

 reason, I think it is worth while to settle this question once 

 for all. 



The great support of those who do claim for animals the 

 ability to infer has been their wonderful performances which 

 resemble our own. These could not, they claim, have hap- 

 pened by accident. No animal could learn to open a latched 

 gate by accident. The whole substance of the argument 

 vanishes if, as a matter of fact, animals do learn those things 



