84 E. L. THORNDIKE. 



count of some associations in human life which are learned in 

 the same way as are animal associations ; associations, there- 

 fore, where the process of formation is possibly homologous 

 with that in animals. When a man learns to swim, to play tennis 

 or billiards, or to juggle, the process is something like what 

 happens when the cat learns to pull the string to get out of the 

 box, provided, of course, we remove, in the man's case, all the 

 accompanying mentality which is not directly concerned in 

 learning the feat.' Like the latter, the former contains de- 

 sire, sense-impression, impulse, act and possible representations. 

 Like it, the former is learned gradually. Moreover, the asso- 

 ciations concerned cannot be formed by imitation. One does 

 not know how to dive just by seeing another man dive. You 

 cannot form them from being put through them, though, of 

 course, this helps indirectly, in a way that it does not with ani- 

 mals. One makes use of no feelings of a common element, no 

 perceptions of similarity. The tennis player does not feel, 

 *' This ball coming at this angle and with this speed is similar in 

 angle, though not in speed, to that other ball of an hour ago, 

 therefore I will hit it in a similar way." He simply feels an 

 impulse from the sense-impression. Finally, the elements of 

 the associations are not isolated. No tennis-player's stream of 

 thought is filled with free-floating representations of any of the 

 tens of thousands of sense-impressions or movements he has 

 seen and made on the tennis-court. Yet there is consciousness 

 enough at the time, keen consciousness of the sense-impressions, 

 impulses, feelings of one's bodily acts. So with the animals. 

 There is consciousness enough, but of this kind. 



1 A man may learn to swim from the general feeling, " I want to be able to 

 swim." While learning, he may think of this desire, of the difficulties of the mo- 

 tion, of the instruction given him, or of anything which may turn up in his 

 mind. This is all extraneous and is not concerned in the acquisition of the as- 

 sociation. Nothing like it, of course, goes on in the animal's mind. Imagine a 

 man thrown into the water repeatedly, and gradually floundering to the shore in 

 better and better style until finally, when thrown in, he swims off perfectly, and 

 deprive the man of all extraneous feelings, and you have an approximate homo- 

 logue of the process in animals. He feels discomfort, certain impules to floun- 

 der around, some of which are the right ones to move his body to the shore. 

 The pleasure which follows stamps in these and gradually the proper move- 

 ments are made immediately on feeling the sense-impression of surrounding 

 water. 



