Mental Processes in Animals. 



347 



80 31J 



" Thus, out of 113 times, he brought ' Food ' 80 times, 

 ' Tea ' 31 times, and [one out of] the other 10. cards only 

 twice. Moreover, the last time he was wrong he brought 

 a card namely, ' Door ' in which three letters out of four 

 were the same as in ' Food.' " 



These experiments and observations are of great 

 interest. But, of course, no stress whatever must be laid 

 on the fact that words chanced to be printed on the cards 

 instead of any other arrangements of lines. I draw 

 attention to this because I have heard Sir John Lubbock's 

 interesting experiments quoted, in conversation, as evidence 

 that the dog understands the meaning of words, not only 

 spoken, but written ! What they show is that Van is able, 

 under human guidance, to associate certain arbitrary 

 symbols with certain objects of appetence ; and, desiring 

 the object, will bring its symbol. It would have been 

 better, I think, because less misleading to the general 

 public, had Sir John Lubbock selected other arbitrary 

 symbols than the printed words we employ. Then no one 

 could have run away with the foolish notion that the dog 

 understands the meaning of these words. No doubt if they 

 had been written in Greek or Hebrew, some people would 

 have been interested, but not surprised, to learn that a 

 dog can be taught to understand with perfect ease these 

 languages ! 



The next question is Have the higher animals the 

 power of analyzing their constructs and forming isolates or 



