ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY 139 



to determine by all the various kinds of evidence and reasoning that he 

 can bring to bear upon the data, just what kinds of thinking the most 

 favored animal can and can not master. The last particularly must 

 be carefully considered; yet, both for animal capacities and animal 

 limitations, is it of prime importance to note that, like ourselves, 

 animals will only learn to do such things as enter profitably into the 

 scheme of their lives. They will under ordinary natural circumstances 

 acquire an intelligent appreciation of such of the goings on in the 

 world about them as they can put to use; and even though we furnish 

 our pets with decidedly different conditions of life and teach them 

 much that they would have no occasion to learn for themselves, yet the 

 manner of their learning will still remain of the same kind and re- 

 quire the same combination of powers as governs their natural be- 

 havior. So, in the end, the question of how animals think is one that 

 psychology may hopefully consider. The answer will never be wholly 

 complete; but there is no reason, so far as it goes, why it should not 

 be sound and convincing — setting forth clearly and precisely what 

 types of intelligent action animals share with us, and how much greater 

 a range of even our simple thinking and doing lies wholly outside of 

 both their interests and their capacities. 



Such reflections are brought home to the psychologist whenever he 

 observes how willing people are to be convinced that the multiplication- 

 table and reading and spelling fall as readily within the powers of the 

 exceptional animal as they do within those of an ordinary small boy. 

 Let us consider a group of performances that within recent years have 

 been triumphantly heralded as proving the vast possibilities of animal 

 education, and have been accepted by the vast majority of people for 

 what they pretend to be. A wise horse, ' Kluge Hans,' has mystified 

 Berlin audiences; and 'Jim Key,' another equine sage, has done the 

 same for the American public, by going through a program that in- 

 cludes adding and subtracting, and multiplying and dividing, reading 

 and spelling, telling time and the days of the week, indicating people's 

 ages, or sorting their letters, revealing their professions and their 

 peculiarities, knowing the value of coins and bills, and even pointing 

 out passages from the Bible or reasoning that a circle has no corners ! 

 In analyzing such performances, it is indispensable to remain undis- 

 tracted by what the exhibitor asserts or pretends that the animal does, 

 but calmly to observe what really takes place and to decide not neces- 

 sarily how the trick is done, but what kind of thinking is concerned 

 in the steps that the animal really takes. Such an exhibition may, 

 however, offer an equally interesting study of the psychology of the 

 audience as of the performer — a study of what people are ready to 

 believe and why they are so disposed. 



It does not require a deep psychological insight to make it clear 

 that the calculating and spelling, time-telling and letter-sorting horse 



