BO ANIMALS REASON? 



481 



in play some simple mechanism which opened the door. A piece 

 of fish or meat outside the inclosure furnished the motive for their 

 attempts to escape. The inclosures for the cats were wooden boxes, 

 in shape and appearance like the one pictured in Fig. 1, and were 

 about 20 X 15 X 12 inches in size. The boxes for the dogs (who 

 were rather small, weighing on the average about thirty pounds) 

 were about 40 X 22 X 22. By means of such experiments we put 

 animals in situations seeming almost sure to call forth any reason- 

 ing powers they possess. On the days when the experiments were 

 taking place they 

 were practically 

 utterly hungry, 

 and so had the 

 best reasons for 

 making every ef- 

 fort to escape. As 

 a fact, their con- 

 duct when shut 

 up in these boxes 

 showed the ut- 

 most eagerness to 

 get out and get at 

 the much-needed 

 food. Moreover, 

 the actions required and the thinking involved are such as the stories 

 told about intelligent animals credit them with, and, on the other 

 hand, are not far removed from the acts and feelings required in the 

 ordinary course of animal life. It would be foolish to deny reason to 

 an animal because he failed to do something (e. g., a mathematical 

 computation) which in the nature of his life he would never be likely 

 to think about, or which his bones and muscles were not fitted to per- 

 form, or which, even by those who credit him with reason, he is never 

 supposed to do. So the experiments were arranged with a view of 

 giving reasoning every chance to display itself if it existed. 



What, now, would we expect to observe if a reasoning animal, 

 who is surely eager to get out, is put, for example, into a box with 

 a door arranged so as to fall open when a wooden button holding it at 

 the top (on the inside) is turned from its vertical to a horizontal posi- 

 tion? "We should expect that he would first try to claw the whole 

 box apart or to crawl out between the bars. He would soon realize 

 the futility of this and stop to consider. He might then think of the 

 button as being the vital point, or of having seen doors open when 

 buttons were turned. He might then poke or claw it around. If 

 after he had eaten the bit of fish outside he was immediately put in 



VOL. LV. — 35 



Fig. 1. 



