Vol. XXn Wheeler, The Study of Animal Behavior. 25 1 



iq04 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE STUDENT OF ANIMAL 



BEHAVIOR. 



BY WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER. 



It is well known that every common or conspicuous animal, 

 like every eminent human personage, is destined sooner or later 

 to become the nucleus of a myth-nimbus. An innate love of the 

 marvellous stirs our fancy to invest all creatures with extraordinary 

 powers, till we learn, with Lessing, that " it is the greatest of 

 miracles that the real miracles can and must become such every 

 day occurrences." This nimbus of myth is not entirely the work 

 of the ignorant and child-like observer. The savant himself, from 

 the days of Aristotle and Pliny down to the present era of 

 abounding ' nature-books,' has contributed not a little to the hero- 

 worship of animals. 



In view of these conditions, the student of any science of animal 

 behavior or comparative psychology worthy of the name, has a 

 two-fold duty to perform. This is both destructive and con- 

 structive ; destructive, in so far as he is compelled to submit 

 traditions concerning animals to searching and depurative criti- 

 cism ; constructive, in so far as he is obliged to rebuild our knowl- 

 edge of animal behavior on the securer foundations of careful 

 observation and experiment. Destructive criticism, especially of 

 the thorough-going kind which seems to be provoked by the now 

 fashionable methods of studying animal behavior, is not a very 

 agreeable undertaking. The scientific critic, if he is noticed at 

 all, will be described as 'technical,' ' dry-as-dust,' and ' colorless ' 

 by those who are incapable of appreciating the beauty and interest 

 attaching to the simplest of Nature's activities, but feel compelled 

 to create wonders, like the child who lies for the sake of producing 

 an impression on the too stolid adults of his environment. A 

 moment's reflection, however, will show that until all that has been 

 claimed for the behavior of animals has been tried as by fire, till 

 it has been passed through the hot alembic of scientific criticism 

 and the metal of truth has been separated from the slag of fiction, 

 it shall form no part of enduring knowledge. 



Not less laborious than the destructive are the constructive 



