1898] ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 269 



A number of interesting experiments were made with a view to 

 testing the influence, if any, of imitation. 



" A box was arranged with two compartments separated by a wire screen. The 

 larger of these had a front of wooden bars with a door which fell open when a 

 string stretched across the top was bitten or clawed down. The smaller was 

 •closed by boards on three sides and by the wire screen on the fourth. Through 

 the screen a cat within could see the one to be imitated pull the string, go out 

 through the door thus opened and eat the fish outside. When put in this com- 

 partment, the top being covered by a large box, a cat soon gave up efforts to claw 

 through the screen, quieted down and watched more or less the proceedings 

 going on in the other compartment. Thus this apparatus could be used to test 

 the power of imitation. A cat who had no experience with the means of escape 

 from the large compartment was put in the closed one ; another cat, who would do 

 it readily, was allowed to go through the performance of pulling the string, going 

 ■out, and eating the fish. Record was made of the number of times he did so and 

 of the number of times the imitator had his eyes clearly fixed on him. . . . After 

 the imitatee had done the thing a number of times, the other was put in the big 

 compartment alone, and the time it took him before pulling the string was noted 

 and his general behaviour closely observed. If he failed in 5 or 10 or 15 

 minutes to do so, he was released and not fed. This entire experiment was 

 repeated a number of times. From the times taken by the imitator to escape and 

 from observation of the way that he did it, we can decide whether imitation played 

 any part. . . . No one, I am sure, who had seen the behaviour of the cats would 

 have claimed that their conduct was at all influenced by what they had seen. 

 When they did hit the string the act looked just like the accidental success 

 •of the ordinary association experiment. But, besides these personal observations, 

 we have in the impersonal time-records sufficient proofs of the absence of imi- 

 tation. It therefore seems sure that we should give up imitation as an a priori 

 explanation of any novel intelligent performance. To say that a dog who 

 opens a gate, for instance, need not have reasoned it out if he had seen 

 another dog do the same thing, is to offer instead of one false explanation 

 another equally false. Imitation in any form is too doubtful a factor to be 

 presupposed without evidence." 



Mr Thorndike is of opinion that monkeys are probably imitative 

 in a sense that cats and dogs are not. But this is not at present 

 substantiated by analogous experiments. I trust that he will submit 

 it to this test. 



As Mr Thorndike himself well observes, it is necessary clearly 

 to differentiate the various meanings which are intended when 

 the word " imitation " is used. The most elementary form of 

 imitation — that, of which, I believe, we find abundant evidence 

 in the procedure of animals — is where the performance of a 

 simple act by one individual suggests the performance of a similar 

 act by another. This is the '* plastic limitation " of Professor Mark 

 Baldwin, and is analogous to mimicry as a biological phenomenon 

 in this respect ; it is imitative from the observer's point of view but 

 does not imply intentional imitation on the part of the performer. 

 Conscious and purposive imitation involves faculties of a high 

 order; and I am not prepared to accept its existence in animals, 



