DO ANIMALS REASON? 487 



same inclosure and observed carefully, in order to see whether they 

 would, from having so often seen the act done, know enough to do 

 it themselves, or at least to try to do it. In this they signally failed. 

 Those who had failed previously to hit upon the thing accidentally 

 never learned it later from seeing it done. Those who were given 

 a chance to imitate acts which accident would sooner or later have 

 taught them learned the acts no more quickly than if they had never 

 seen the other animal do it the score or more of times. The ani- 

 mals, that is, could not master the simple inference that if, in a cer- 

 tain situation, that fellow-cat of mine performs a certain act and 

 gets fish, I, in the same situation, may get fish by performing that 

 act. They did not think enough to profit by the observation of 

 their fellows, no matter how many chances for such observation were 

 given them. 



Equally corroborative of our first position are the results of still 

 another set of experiments. Here the dogs and cats were put 

 through the proper movement from twenty-five to one hundred 

 times, being left in the box after every five or ten trials and watched 

 to see if they would not be able at least to realize that the act which 

 they had just been made to do and which had resulted in liberation 

 and food was the proper act to be done. For instance, a dog would 

 be put in a box the door of which would fall open when a loop of 

 string hanging outside the box was clawed down an inch or so. Ani- 

 mals were taken who had, when left to themselves, failed to be led 

 to this particular act by their general instinctive activities. After 

 two minutes I would put in my arm, take the dog's paw, hold it out 

 between the bars, and, inserting it in the loop, pull the loop down. 

 The dog would of course then go out and eat the bit of meat. After 

 repeating this ten times (in some cases five) I would put the dog in 

 and leave him to his own devices. If, as was always the case, he 

 failed in ten or twenty minutes to profit by my teaching I would 

 take him out, but would not feed him. After a half hour or so I 

 would recommence my attempts to show the dog what needed to be 

 done. This would be kept up for two or three days, until he had 

 shown his utter inability to get the notion of doing for himself what 

 he had been made to do a hundred or more times. The mental 

 process required here need not be so high a one as inference or rea- 

 soning, but surely any animal possessing those would, after seeing 

 and feeling his paw pull a loop down a hundred times with such 

 good results, have known enough to do it himself, l^one of my ani- 

 mals did know enough. Those who did not in ten or twelve trials 

 hit upon an act by accident could never be taught that act by being 

 put through it. And, as in the case of imitation, acts of such a sort 

 as would be surely learned by virtue of accidental success were not 



