Io6 E. L THORNDIKE. 



progress of primitive man, the long time between stone age and 

 iron age, for instance, becomes suggestive. Primitive man 

 probably acquired knowledge by just this process, aided pos- 

 sibly by imitation. At any rate, progress was not by seeing 

 through things, but by accidentally hitting upon them. Very 

 possibly an investigation of the history of primitive man and of 

 the present life of savages in the light of the results of this re- 

 search might bring out old facts in a new and profitable way. 

 Comparative psychology has, in the light of this research, 

 two tasks of prime importance. One is to study the passage 

 of the child-mind from a life of immediately practical associa- 

 tions to the life of free ideas ; the other is to find out how far 

 the anthropoid primates advance toward a similar passage, and 

 to ascertain accurately what faint beginnings or preparations 

 for such an advance the early mammalian stock may be sup- 

 posed to have had. In this latter connection I think it will be 

 of the utmost importance to bear in mind the possibility that the 

 -present anthropoid jprimates may be mentally degenerate. Their 

 present aimless activity and incessant, but largely useless, 

 curiosity may be the degenerated vestiges of such a well-directed 

 activity and useful curiosity as led hoino sapiens to important 

 practical discoveries, such as the use of tools, the art of making 

 fire, etc. It is even a remote possibility that their chattering is 

 a relic of something like language, not a beginning of such. 

 Comparative psychology should use the phenomena of the 

 monkey-mind of to-day to find out what the primitive mind from 

 which man's sprung off was like. That is the important thing 

 to get at, and the question whether the present monkey-mind 

 has not gone back instead of ahead is an all-important question. 

 A natural and perhaps sufficient cause of degeneracy would be 

 arboreal habits. The animal that found a means of survival in 

 his muscles might well lose the means before furnished by his 

 brain. 



To these disconnected remarks still another must be added, 

 addressed this time to the anecdote school. Some member of it 

 who has chanced to read this may feel like saying : «* This ex- 

 perimental work is all very well. Your cats and dogs repre- 

 sent, it is true, specimens from the top stratum of animal intelli- 



