40 IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. 



THE NEW SCHOOL OF ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



C. C. NUTTING. 



The title of this paper is in one sense a misnomer, from the 

 fact that the prophets of the new school are inclined to deny 

 any real psychology to animals. According to Morgan, mind 

 is the wave of consciousness in its continuity.* Thorndyke 

 says that " The mental stream is not continuous in animals, "f 

 If this is true, animals can not be said to have minds, and hence 

 animal psychology can not exist. 



However this may be, a discussion of those activities which 

 have heretofore been regarded as psychical in animals forms 

 the theme of a work embodying the views of the most radical 

 of recent writers on comparative psychology. 



This work is from the pen of Dr. Edward L. Thorndyke, 

 fellow in psychology in Columbia University, and appeared in 

 the form of a Monograph supplement in the Psychological Review 

 of June, 1898. The views advanced therein are so iconoclastic 

 that one rubs his eyes before realizing that these views are 

 quite seriously advanced as the outcome of a great number of 

 ingenious experiments reduced to the form of diagrams, time 

 curves, etc. 



The animals experimented with were cats, dogs and chicks, 

 and they were taught to get out of variously contrived boxes 

 under the stimulus of hunger, food being the invariable 

 reward for success, and continued hunger the result of failure. 



These boxes were contrived with undeniable ingenuity and 

 were so constructed that the animal experimented with could 

 escape by its own activity. The act of opening the box was of 

 various degrees of complexity from a simple pressure to three 

 separate movements, such as clawing, pushing and biting. 



The hungry animal was placed in one of these boxes and 

 the time in which it accomplished its exit was noted. As 

 soon as escape was effected the animal was fed. This process 



*lDtro(iuctioa to Comparative Psychology, p. 36. 

 tAnlmal Intelligence, p. 99. 



