10 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 



too much, and of assuming that in the mental life of 

 the great mass of mankind there enter more of 

 those higher intellectual processes (conceivable and 

 possible at times) than there really are even among 

 civilised men, not to mention the savage at all ? We 

 hardly realise, I fear, in how narrow a groove many 

 minds move for the greater part of the waking period 

 of every day ; and this will hold, whether we take the 

 case of those whose lives are one monotonous grind, or 

 those who limit their thinking by devotion to some 

 one simple but absorbing pursuit. 



Let me illustrate by the case of a student who is 

 passionately devoted to cycling. I know of one such 

 case. His father is a professor, and in speaking of his 

 son's absorption in this subject to the neglect of his 

 studies, he expressed himself somewhat thus : " I would 

 not mind if my son spent a couple of hours a day on 

 the bicycle, and would forget it for the rest of the time ; 

 but wherever he is, he seems to think of almost nothing 

 else, hence he cannot study successfully." Probably 

 you can call up pretty well the condition of the mind 

 of this youth. He sees bicycles, he feels bicycles, he 

 beholds race-tracks and crowds, he hears applause, he 

 receives prizes in imagination, etc., etc., and this over 

 and over again with little variation. You might con- 

 struct a diagram giving a representation of the probable 

 thought relations in his case, seeing he lives in a 

 realm of " sense-experience," one in which the percep- 

 tion of relations only occasionally enters, if we are by 

 this to mean such perception as is impossible to the 

 dog. 



Indeed, how much is there in such mental states 

 that is impossible to the dog ? If for cycling we sub- 

 stitute hunting, the case will be clearer. Do you think 

 that the pictures of the hunting-field on which the man 

 feasts, differ much from those the dog calls' up ? 



