Mental Processes in Animals. 361 



cess I hold to be similar in kind throughout the animal 

 kingdom wherever we may presume that it occurs at all. 

 But the products of the process seem to me to be pre- 

 sumably widely different. If we steadily bear in mind the 

 fact that the world of man is a joint product of an external 

 existence and the human mind, and then ask whether it is 

 conceivable that the joint products of this external existence 

 and the dog-mind, the bird-mind, the fish-mind, the bee- 

 mind, or the worm-mind are exactly or even closely 

 similar, we must, it seems to me, answer the question with 

 an emphatic negative. 



We will now consider the nature of the inferences of 

 animals. It will be remembered that a distinction was 

 drawn between perceptual inferences and inferences in- 

 volving a conceptual element. As I use the words, per- 

 ceptual inferences are a matter, at most, of intelligence ; 

 but conceptual inferences involve the higher faculty of 

 reason. 



It will be necessary here to say somewhat more than 

 I have already said concerning inference. When I see 

 an orange, that object is mentally constructed at the 

 bidding of certain sight-sensations. All that is actually 

 received is the stimulus of the retinal elements ; the rest is 

 suggested and supplied by the activity of the mind. It is 

 sometimes said that this complementary part of the per- 

 ception is inferred. So, too, when I hear a howl in the 

 street which suggests the construct dog, it may be said 

 that I infer the presence of the dog. And again, when the 

 dog is perceived to be in pain, it may be said that this is 

 an inference. Now, although the use of the word " infer- 

 ence " to denote the complementary part of a percept 

 seems a little contrary to ordinary usage, still there are 

 some advantages in so with due qualification employing 

 it. But since, as it seems to me, the characteristic of the 

 inference, if so we style it, in the formation of constructs 

 by immediate association is its unconscious nature (i.e. 

 unconscious as a process) we may perhaps best meet the 



