THE PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG ANIMALS 57 



Suggestive Actions. — I prefer this term to " imitation " as the latter has become 

 associated in most minds with the attempt to repeat what has been seen. In dogs the first 

 imitative action or rather suggestive action is seen in play. One bites the other gently and 

 this rouses the tendency to reciprocate. It comes before all visual suggestive action. Wlien 

 several mature dogs are kept together, one may witness daily many interesting examples of 

 imitative action. It has an educative effect of the widest influence either for good or evil on 

 dogs. Much of sheep-worrying, etc., is the result of suggestive action, and is not spontane- 

 ous, except in so far as it is natural to all dogs to chase. 



In the puppy from the 40th day onward suggestive action is very common, and this 

 greatly increases the activity and hastens the psychic progress of the members of a litter of 

 puppies as compared with a single young dog kept apart. 



It often, I have noticed, advances a puppy of a few months of age to place liim among 

 older dogs ; and this is sometimes followed liy the best physical as well as psychic results, 

 especially if the young dog be allowed to go out for exercise with the older ones, under 

 direction of course, for dogs should not be allowed to roam as they will any more than 

 children. They too soon learn the ways of the street. The manner in which this principle 

 of suggestive action was illustrated on the 61st day when in the yard among the older dogs 

 was very striking. 



Besemblances to the Mature Dog. — Every animal is what it is by reason of its inherent 

 tendencies as re-acted on by the environment, and at this stage it may be interesting and 

 instructive to call attention to the first occasion on which actions suggestive of those of older 

 dogs if not practically identical were manifested. The reader is especially referred to 

 certain records on the 37th, 39th, 40th, 42nd, 43rd, 45th, 47t]i, 48tli, 49th and 50tli days. 



Indeed, after the 50th day these resemlilances in behaviour are so numerous, or in other 

 words the puppy is so matured, so fully equipped psychically that much less interest, or at all 

 events importance, attaches to the study of his psychic life. 



Influences of Environment — As has been explained when in the young puppy the eyes 

 are closed he is very apt to fall asleep, and if all the stimuli through the sensory organs 

 were cut off consciousness would be reduced to a minimum if it existed at all. On the other 

 hand as illustrating the influence of the environment in special ways on the early psychic 

 life of the puppy, the reader is referred to records in the diary on the 23rd, 26th, 33rd, 45th, 

 46th, 47th and 49th days among others. There is not space for comment. 



Reasoning. — I do not propose to enter into the controversy as to whether animals not 

 possessed of articulate language can reason ; or whether we should name the process 

 corresponding to that in man "inference." 



That man can reason in a way that animals lower in the scale cannot is certain ; but 

 that much that we assume to be of a higher order in the mind of man and perhaps consider 

 reasoning of this higher order differs in no essential point from psychic processes in animals, 

 I am convinced after many years close ol)servation alike of animals and man including the 

 working of my own mind which after all is the final court of appeal for one's self When 

 on the 41st day the puppy scrapes away the sawdust, and then some days later repeating the 

 act, tries one spot with his head, not being satisfied paws again just where there is a slight 

 elevation in the floor, is there reasoning ? 



When on nearly every occasion on seeing me the puppy that had been trodden on 



Sec. IV., 1894. 8. 



