730 COMPARATIVE AND GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY 



past life, of reflectively dating them, as it were. It is indeed un- 

 likely that such relational consciousness occurs, and in any case 

 it is impossible to prove its presence by our necessarily objective 

 methods. 



This consideration leads at once to a discussion of the most dis- 

 puted problems of the analytic section of comparative psychology. 

 It has just been shown that animals possess the simplest form of 

 the learning-consciousness. Do they, in addition, learn by analy- 

 tical reasoning, that is, have they relational as well as sensational 

 and affective consciousness? And, second, have they the con- 

 sciousness characteristic of the social type of learning, that is, do 

 they reflectively imitate or oppose themselves to other selves? * 



As regards the question of relational consciousness, it is prob- 

 able that animals of every order, primates to infusorians, do some- 

 times perform acts which might conceivably be performed through 

 analytical relational consciousness. To take an example from 

 among unicellular organisms: the movement of the Stentor when 

 it reacts to a persisting harmful stimulus by giving up its normal 

 position, that is, by abandoning completely its tube and swimming 

 away to form a new one, might be regarded as performing this 

 movement by analyzing out the relational elements of the situa- 

 tion, by reflecting, "this stimulus recurs perpetually, and so to 

 be unharmed by it, I must avoid it." But the fact that an act is 

 such as might have been performed through the analytical con- 

 sciousness of relations is far from proving that it has been thus 

 performed. The fact, for example, that animals react in a similar 

 way to distinct yet similar stimuli does not prove that they have 

 analyzed the stimulus and that they realize similarity as one of 

 its elements. On the other hand, it is far more likely that they 

 react to the situation as a whole, noticing neither its difference 

 nor its similarity as compared with that w r hich has preceded. So 

 also the use of implements, noted by many observers in the verte- 

 brates, 2 by Wasmann and others in ants, 3 and by the Peckhams 4 

 in wasps, though it might, be carried out through analysis of im- 

 plement and of situation, this latch to be opened by this supple 

 wire, or this nest-surface to be pounded down by this hard pebble, 

 is not, in all probability, due to such analysis. For it is a matter 

 of experimental proof that even the higher vertebrates are in- 

 capable of analyzing situations except in a very limited way. To 

 a degree they presumably learn to discriminate else they would 

 probably not react to more and more limited portions of their 



1 Cf. p. 716, above. 



2 Cf. Romanes, Animal Intelligence, pp. 466, 481, 490. 



3 Das Seelenleben der Ameisen, 1900, p. 83. 



4 Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps, Bulletin of Wisconsin Geological 

 and Natural History Survey, 1898, p. 22. 



