Editorial. 361 



that they have any general abihty to learn to do things from 

 seeing others do them." Kinnaman in his Studies of the Men- 

 tal Life of Rhesus Monkeys in Captivity, comes to a different 

 conclusion: "Again, of the simple form as discussed by Bald- 

 win, I observed one very clear case. . . This appears 

 to me to come c-early under Morgan's class of intelligent imi- 

 tation of an act . . There were m.my other cases of 

 this t\'pe, as it seems to me, though they are more difficult to 

 demonstrate. , . . But again I have observed two cases 

 of imitation of the /'^v'.^v.yAv// and ///A7/4'"^/// types. 



S.mall' writes as follows: "My conclusions from all this 

 experimental work, and from much other observation of rats is 

 that they do imitate but that imitation with them is relatively 

 simple. They imitate simple actions ; but I have seen no case 

 of what may, in lack of a better term, be called inferential imi- 

 tation. " 



As far as our" observations ha\e gone, we thoroughly agree 

 with this conclusion of Small. 



Hobhouse', who is by far the most liberal interpreter of 

 animal behavior, takes up no experiments which are especially 

 designed to show this form of mental activity. He criticizes 

 Thokndike vcr>' severely for denying outright that animals can 

 learn by being put through an action. In fact he cites an experi- 

 ment, conducted by himself, which is designed to prove the con- 

 trar)- (p. 148). In discussing imitation in animals lower than the 

 primates (pp. 1 49- 151), he says it remains uncertain whether they 

 have the power of "reflective imitation"' — imitation based on 

 the perception of anotlier's act and its result to that other. 

 HoBHOUSE rightl)' insists that the possibility of a still simpler 

 mental act must first be settled— "learning by the perception 

 of an event and its consequence^when that consequence di- 

 rectly affects the learner." His "Experimental Results" (pp. 



' Wni AKli S. Smai I.. Experimental Studies of the Mental Processes of the 

 i\at. A>neric,\u fouriial of Psyiholpi;\\ Vol. XI. Nn. 2. p. 162. 



' Ii'HN 15. \V\iM>N. Animal Education. 



■ Hiir.ih>r^K. Mind in Evdluiitm. 



