XV 

 WHAT DO YOUNG ANIMALS KNOW? 



IN these days when physicists are to be found 

 discussing under new forms the old question as 

 to the all-pervading character of mind in the 

 universe, there is no subject which possesses more 

 interest of a certain kind than that which relates to 

 the mind of young animals. Any one who has 

 made a systematic study of intelligence amongst 

 young animals has generally found that his own 

 mind has passed through various stages of growth. 

 The belief in the simplicity of the subject soon gives 

 way to a conviction of its profound complexity. 

 It is an old Scottish tradition to incline to a certain 

 reverence for the mind of the child, the view being 

 that it possesses faculties and perceptions related 

 to universal intelligence which are lost with later 

 growth. It is a peculiarity of the study of the 

 young that the observer often tends even without 

 admitting the fact to himself to extend a somewhat 

 similar view to the mind of young animals. 



If a young queen wasp is imprisoned in the nest 

 late in the autumn before she has mated, the sense of 

 the latent future which is thwarted in her is a most 

 striking spectacle to witness. That it is not simply 



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