6o6 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



be achieved without detailed conscious control. At a lower level, 

 yet often invoh-ing inteUigent actiN-ity of considerable intensity, is 

 the learning of a game of physical and psychical skill; and everyone 

 knows how habituated this may become. As the word "habits" is 

 used in several senses, e.g. for the whole beha\'iour of an animal and 

 for pathological cravings, it may be well to keep the term habitua- 

 tion for the process and the result of enregistering intelligent 

 actixities until detailed control ceases to be necessary for their 

 pcrformana*. It is plain that the results of training, though proving 

 educability, are often much less intelligent than they seem. A good 

 illustration is given by Hobhouse, who tells of the elephant that put 

 pennies deftly into the slot of the biscuit-delivering machine, but 

 rejected with impatience the halfpennies that would not work the 

 mechanism. This looked on the face of it hugely intelligent, but it 

 was the outcome of very laborious habituation, implying weeks of 

 training, during which the trunk was guided to the automatic 

 machine, and other weeks during which an associative discrimina- 

 tion of pennies from halfpennies was built up. It would be very 

 extreme to say that there was no appreciation of significance on 

 the elephant's part, but most of the performance depended on 

 enregistering a sequence of acts. An association was established 

 between the feel of the penny and raising the trunk to the slot, 

 between the feel of the halfpenny and throwing it back to the 

 visitor, but this did not involve even a spice of judgment. As long 

 as the elephant was sensorily acute enough to distinguish pennies 

 and halfjx^nnics with the tip of its trunk, and plastic enough to 

 establish a novel and very artificial neuromuscular linkage, there 

 was no need for it to go farther in this particular connection. 

 And we must be frank enough to admit that few of us know 

 in any precise way how the disappearance of the penny is 

 followed by the appearance of the biscuit, and why a halfpenny 

 will not work. 



When we turn from training that results in a routine performance 

 to training which has its outcome in a variety of actions appro- 

 priately adjusted, we hear more clearly the note of inteUigence. 

 This is illustrated by an elephant's co-oiXTation with the workmen 

 in the forest, by the shunting horses at a railway station in the 

 country, or, best of all, by the colHe dog in its successful completion 

 of a difficult piece of shepherding. In such cases the animal mind has 

 been raised to a higher ]X)wer by working in responsible partnership 

 with man; and the most striking feature is the judgment shown in 

 adjusting the response to the jx-culiarities of a particular situation. 

 In the collie's case it seems that successful achievement depends 

 not only on the individually variable educability, and on the 

 .shepherd's skilful training, but on the instruction giv^en to the 

 prentice by the parent dog, some say by the mother especially. 



