1898] ANIMAL INTELLIGENUE 269 
A number of interesting experiments were made with a view to 
testing the influence, if any, of imitation. 
“ A box was arranged with two compartments separated by a wire screen. The 
larger of these had a front of wooden bars with a door which fell open when a 
string stretched across the top was bitten or clawed down. The smaller was 
closed by boards on three sides and by the wire screen on the fourth. Through 
the screen a cat within could see the one to be imitated pull the string, go out 
through the door thus opened and eat the fish outside. When put in this com- 
partment, the top being covered by a large box, a cat soon gave up efforts to claw 
through the screen, quieted down and watched more or less the proceedings 
going on in the other compartment. Thus this apparatus could be used to test 
the power of imitation. A cat who had no experience with the means of escape 
from the large compartment was put in the closed one ; another cat, who would do 
it readily, was allowed to go through the performance of pulling the string, going 
out, and eating the fish. Record was made of the number of times he did so and 
ot the number of times the imitator had his eyes clearly fixed on him. . . . After 
the imitatee had done the thing a number of times, the other was put in the big 
compartment alone, and the time it took him before pulling the string was noted 
and his general behaviour closely observed. If he failed in 5 or 10 or 15 
minutes to do so, he was released and not fed. This entire experiment was 
repeated a number of times. From the times taken by the imitator to escape and 
from observation of the way that he did it, we can decide whether imitation played 
any part. . . . No one, I am sure, who had seen the behaviour of the cats would 
have claimed that their conduct was at all influenced by what they had seen. 
When they did hit the string the act looked just like the accidental success 
of the ordinary association experiment. But, besides these personal observations, 
we have in the impersonal time-records sufficient proofs of the absence of imi- 
tation. It therefore seems sure that we should give up imitation as an a priori 
explanation of any novel intelligent performance. To say that a dog who 
opens a gate, for instance, need not have reasoned it out if he had seen 
_another dog do the same thing, is to offer instead of one false explanation 
another equally false. Imitation in any form is too doubtful a factor to be 
presupposed without evidence.” 
Mr Thorndike is of opinion that monkeys are probably imitative 
in a sense that cats and dogs are not. But this is not at present 
substantiated by analogous experiments. I trust that he will submit 
it to this test. 
As Mr Thorndike himself well observes, it is necessary clearly 
to differentiate the various meanings which are intended when 
the word “imitation” is used. The most elementary form of 
imitation—that, of which, I believe, we find abundant evidence 
in the procedure of animals—is where the performance of a 
simple act by one individual suggests the performance of a similar 
act by another. This is the “ plastic limitation ” of Professor Mark 
Baldwin, and is analogous to mimicry as a biological phenomenon 
in this respect ; it is imitative from the observer’s point of view but 
does not imply intentional imitation on the part of the performer. 
Conscious and purposive imitation involves faculties of a high 
order; and I am not prepared to accept its existence in animals, 
