Experimental Study of Associative Processes 73 



the door open, and formed a permanent association, as 

 shown by the curves on page 41. No one who had seen the 

 behavior of these animals when trying to escape could 

 doubt that their actions were directed by instinctive im- 

 pulses, not by rational observation. It is then absolutely 

 sure that a dog or cat can open a door closed by a thumb 

 latch or button, merely by the accidental success of its 

 natural impulses. If all cats, when hungry and in a small 

 box, will accidentally push the button that holds the door, 

 an occasional cat in a large room may very well do the same. 

 If three cats out of eight will accidentally press down a 

 thumb piece and push open a small door, three cats out of 

 a thousand may very well open doors or gates in the same 

 way. 



But besides thus depriving of their value the facts which 

 these theorizers offer as evidence, we may, by a careful 

 examination of the method of formation of these associations 

 as it is shown in the time-curves, gain positive evidence that 

 no power of inference was present in the subjects of the ex- 

 periments. Surely if i and 6 had possessed any power of 

 inference, they would not have failed to get out after having 

 done so several times. Yet they did. (Seep. 71.) If they 

 had once even, much less if they had six or eight times, 

 inferred what was to be done, they should have made the 

 inference the seventh or ninth time. And if there were in 

 these animals any power of inference, however rudimentary, 

 however sporadic, however dim, there should have appeared 

 among the multitude some cases where an animal, seeing 

 through the situation, knows the proper act, does it, and 

 from then on does it immediately upon being confronted 

 with the situation. There ought, that is, to be a sudden 

 vertical descent in the time-curve. Of course, where the 

 act resulting from the impulse is very simple, very obvious, 



