THE PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG ANIMALS 227 
shows, the social instincts so far as man and other 
animals are concerned. How seldom a cat seems even 
to miss its old friends, if indeed they are to it friends. 
Not that I believe the cat an entirely ungrateful 
animal. It is very sensitive to good and to bad treat- 
ment, but it is not dependent on man either physically 
or psychically. The cat may, of its own accord, take 
to the fields and woods to secure an independent 
existence, and so long as the environment is favourable, 
it may, it would seem, be utterly oblivious alike of 
friends and foes. 
This independence was shown quite early in the case 
of my kitten. At the same time, one of the most 
interesting features in this psychic study has been 
noting the way in which higher mental states and 
better qualities prevailed in the end in this kitten, 
under good treatment. It had finally become social 
and affectionate, discriminating in favour of the one 
who had really done the most for its comfort. But of 
self-denying, purely unselfish devotion to a master, as 
in the case of the dog, there seems to be little—very 
little—in the cat. But puss is no flatterer, and her 
readiness to resent ill-treatment may have had much 
to do with her not occupying a higher position in man’s 
esteem. 
I have, myself, raised a cat from the depth of de- 
gradation, so to speak, to self-respect and the respect 
of others by patient and persevering good treatment, 
and I am anxious to record the fact, as I believe the 
eat to be much misunderstood, and its intelligence 
greatly underrated. 
If the term intelligence be employed in a wide sense, 
and be made to cover the power an animal has to 
adapt means to ends, in a more or less conscious way, 
including the adaptation of its own organisation to the 
environment, then the diary of the cat will furnish an 
