46 E. L. THORNDIKE. 



even the inference (if the process may be dignified by that 

 name) that what gives another food will give it to them also. 

 So, also, it will be later seen that an animal cannot learn an act 

 by being put through it. For instance, a cat who fails to push 

 down a thumb-piece and push out the door cannot be taught by 

 having one take its paw and press the thumb-piece down with 

 it. This coiild be learned by a certain type of associative pro- 

 cess without inference. Were there inference it surely would be 

 learned. 



Finally, attention may be called to the curves which show 

 the way that the animal mind deals with a series of acts (e.g:, 

 curves for G, J, K, L and O, found on pages 21 to 26 and 34). 

 Were there any reasoning the animals ought early to master the 

 method of escape in these cases (see descriptions on pages 10 

 to 12 and 32) so as to do the several acts in order, and not to 

 repeat one after doing it once, or else ought utterly to fail to 

 master the thing. But, in all these experiments, where there 

 was every motive for the use of any reasoning faculty, if such 

 existed, where the animals literally lived by their intellectual 

 powers, one finds no sign of abstraction, or inference, or judg- 

 ment. 



So far I have only given facts which are quite uninflenced by 

 any possible incompetence or prejudice of the observer. These 

 alone seem to disprove the existence of any rational faculty in 

 the subjects experimented on. I may add that my observations 

 of all the conduct of all these animals during the months spent 

 with them, failed to find any act that even seemed due to reason- 

 ing. I should claim that this quarrel ought now to be dropped 

 for good and all, that investigation ought to be directed along 

 more sensible and profitable lines. I should claim that the 

 psychologist who studies dogs and cats in order to defend this 

 * reason ' theory is on a level with a zoologist who should study 

 fishes with a view to supporting the thesis that they possessed 

 clawed digits. The rest of this account will deal with more 

 promising problems, of which the first, and not the least im- 

 portant, concerns the facts and theories of imitation. 



