SEP 26 1899 
Natural Science 
A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress 
Juty 1899 


moLeES AND COMMENTS. 
The Animal Mind. 
Iy the June number of Natural Science we had occasion to remark that 
comparative psychology is the most anarchic department within the 
naturalist’s province. This is due to several causes: in part to the 
fact that, as we said, this field is often a happy hunting-ground for the 
crank, in part to a lamentable want of agreement in the use of psycho- 
logical terms, and in part to the lack of any co-ordinated body of 
critical and adequately-trained opinion on the subject. The average 
press critique of a work on the instincts and intelligence of animals 
reveals the fact that there are comparatively few men to whom an 
editor can appeal with confidence that they have a sufficient back- 
ground of knowledge to enable them to realise the true nature of the 
problems which are discussed. The more popular and superficial the 
interpretation in a work under review, and the more closely it accords 
with the current prejudices of those who, without special study, think 
they understand, not only mental products, but (a far more difficult 
matter) the subtle processes by which they are reached, the more likely 
is it to be hailed as the expression of the “plain common sense view 
of the question.” 
Two articles are devoted to comparative psychology in the May 
number of the Psychological Review: one by Prof. Wesley Mills on 
“The Nature of Animal Intelligence, and the Methods of investigating 
it”; the other by Prof. E. Thorndike on “The Instinctive Reaction of 
Young Chicks.” The main object of the former writer is to criticise 
some of the previous work of the latter. The monograph by Prof. 
Thorndike thus criticised was reviewed in these pages by Prof. Lloyd 
Morgan, who urged, inter alia, that the method adopted by its author, 
that of placing starving cats in cramped cages, was unsatisfactory. 
This, too, is the burden of much of Prof. Wesley Mills’ criticism. And 
so far he is on safe ground—ground which, as an independent observer, 
he knows well. But when he deals with psychological criticism the 
plane of his analysis is so different from Prof. Thorndike’s, that little 
of value comes out of his discussion. He will, we think, enlist the 
sympathies of the uninstructed, rather than those of serious students of 
1—wnar. sc.—voL. xv. No. 89. I 
