Hamilton, Unusual Reaction of a Dog. 341 



Although such behavior cannot, if my analysis be correct, fall 

 under the head of accidental happenings, and therefore stands out 

 as an actual reaction-type, it did not tend to increase in frequency. 

 Whether the capacity for occasional adjustments of this degree of 

 complexity is a necessary part of the canine endowment, or merely 

 an individual trait, it strongly suggests the possibility of there being 

 still higher reaction-types higher in the phylogenetic scale. 



The reader will be better oriented as to the nature of the views 

 and problems just expressed if a brief reference be made to the 

 fact that they are due, in part, to certain investigations in the field 

 of psychiatry. From the extremely inadequate reaction-types 

 observed in certain psychoses, to the relatively adequate reaction- 

 tvpes of relatively normal individuals, there is unbroken contin- 

 uity. Kraepelin,'' with his keen insight into abnormal reactions, 

 establishes this continuity by means of transitional clinical pic- 

 tures, which lead us from the abnormal to the normal. And in 

 spite of his objections to the radical degeneracy doctrines of Lom- 

 BROSO and the Italian school of positivists, he makes frequent 

 references to the fact that many of the reactions occurring in the 

 "degenerative psychoses" strongly suggest the reactions of primi- 

 tive peoples. On the assumption of degenerative reversion in 

 certam psychoses, there at once arises the possibility that the ap- 

 parent gap between human and animal adequacy ot adjustment 

 may be bridged by means of studies of reaction-types of the highest 

 of the animals below man on the one hand, and of studies of reac- 

 tion-types in savages and the degenerative insane on the other 

 hand. 



The writer wishes to acknowledge the obligations under which 

 he has been placed by his colleague, Dr. R. C. Kell, who ren- 

 dered much valuable assistance in the construction of apparatus, 

 the drawing of figures, and the actual carrying out of experi- 

 mental work. 



Kraepeliv, Psvchiatrie. II Band, siebente Auflage. 1904. 



