ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 177 



§ 2. Diverse Views as to Animal Behaviour. 



The difficulty of rightly interpreting the observed be- 

 haviour of animals is confessedly great. It is not easy for 

 us to get mentally near them. In many cases the structure 

 of their body in general and of their nervous system in par- 

 ticular is very different from ours; their sense-organs are 

 often on another plan, and there are some whose functions 

 we do not yet know; such words as a few of the higher 

 animals have, we can only vaguely understand. How are 

 we to get into mental contact with ants and bees? And 

 even for more accessible animals, like horse and dog, there 

 is a great difficulty involved in the simple fact that all our 

 psychological terms are saturated with human meaning. 



Some investigators have found a short and easy way out 

 of difficulties by dogmatically declaring that there is no more 

 mind among animals than there is among plants, and that 

 the sensible course is to keep to physiological description. 

 If that suffices for giving an account of the bryony climbing 

 up the hedge with its exquisitely tactile and adaptively 

 motile tendrils, will it not serve for the sea-urchin climbing 

 up the rock, the squirrel climbing up the tree? This is 

 the extreme of over-simplicity. It was indeed a wise saying 

 of Spinoza : — " ISTo one has yet learned from experience what 

 the body regarded purely as a body is able to do in accord- 

 ance with its own natural laws, or what it cannot do ", but 

 it seems to most naturalists to make the behaviour of higher 

 animals magical if we do not credit them with an aware- 

 ness and pre-awareness of meaning. 



There are others who think that we get nearer the truth 

 the more anthropomorphic we are, who believe that the 

 behaviour of all animals shows evidence of mind. That is 



