156 Chapter VIII. 



the one hand they are able to learn by independent 

 sense experience, and thus develop, or modify their 

 hereditary instincts within certain limits; and, on the 

 other, they are unable to learn from agreeable or 

 disagreeable experiences, however frequently the latter 

 rnay occur. What is the solution of this riddle? It 

 can be found only by insisting on the precise distinc- 

 tion which prevails between the second and the third 

 forms of learning. The animal is able to learn without 

 foreign help, whenever the new associations of repre- 

 sentations which flow immediately from sense experi- 

 ence and do not demand reflection, are sufficient in 

 themselves to modify its mode of action ; but, whenever 

 an intellectual power of inferring new conditions from 

 the past is requisite for that purpose, the animal is not 

 able to learn the least thing without foreign assistance. 

 In other words : The power of learning is limited in 

 animals to their sensile memory ; it fails entirely, where 

 intelligence ought to set in, that noble psychic faculty 

 which carries man constantly onward on the path of 

 progress. Consequently the essential difference between 

 the powers of learning in animals and in man must be 

 sought in the third form of acquiring knowledge. It 

 is as characteristic of the latter, as it is lacking to the 

 former. The next three forms deal with the modes of 

 learning by foreign influence. 



4. The fourth form is that of learning by instinct- 

 ively imitating the behavior of surrounding beings. It 

 is the lowest stage of learning by foreign influence. As 

 the first form of independent learning is closely con- 

 nected with reflex processes, whence it proceeds to real 

 psychic activities, so it is with this form of learning by 



