THE INTELLIGENCE OF MAMMALS 249 
The sweetness occurs to us very quickly and directly, and 
with it, if we are hungry, the impulse to seize, and eat the 
orange. In this, as in most affairs of life, we arrive at the 
conclusion first and reason about it afterward. Our con- 
scious reasoning is a process of reviewing and verification 
which can usually be dispensed with, rather than one of 
discovery. The animal that reaches for an object which it 
has learned is good to eat gets along without the retrospec- 
tive review. He may go through with mental processes of 
various degrees of complexity. The visual sensation may 
call up directly the impulse to seize and eat the orange. It 
may call up along with the latter the taste and other attri- 
butes of the orange. It may call up the taste and other 
attributes which in turn arouse the impulses to seize and 
eat. The various mental steps may be present in different 
degrees of vividness. The relation of different states may 
be attended to; the animal may finally come to “think the 
therefore,” and so on. 
“Inference,” says Hobhouse, “is one function, from the 
simplest case quoted by Mr. Morgan of the chick, up to the 
highest elaboration of experience by the human intellect. 
The differences are differences in articulateness on the one 
side, and comprehensiveness on the other.” There is good 
reason to believe that animals profit by the association of 
Ideas, and that they do certain acts, not for their own sake, 
but as a means to an ulterior end which is kept in mind. 
If we do not choose to designate the mental operations 
involved in such behavior by the term reason we must at 
least admit that they are on the road to it. 
How far along animals like dogs, raccoons and elephants 
may be on the highway toward reason properly so-called 
it is impossible at present to state. I have read critically 
a good many stories of animal intelligence which have left 
