4 The Animal Mind 



since we could not interpret it from our experience ; but the 

 higher vertebrates could give us much insight into their 

 minds if they could only speak. We are, however, restricted 

 to the inferences we can draw from movements and sounds 

 that are made for the most part without the intention of 

 communicating anything to us. One happy consequence of 

 this fact, which to a slight extent balances its disadvantages, 

 is that we have not to contend with self-consciousness and 

 posing, which often invalidate human reports of intro- 

 spection. 



From these general considerations we can understand 

 something of the special difficulties that beset the path of the 

 comparative psychologist, who desires to know the contents 

 of minds below the human level. Knowledge regarding the 

 animal mind, like knowledge of human minds other than our 

 own, must come by way of inference from behavior. Two 

 fundamental questions then confront the comparative psy- 

 chologist. First, by what method shall he find out how an 

 animal behaves? Second, how shall he interpret the con- 

 scious aspect of that behavior ? 



2. Methods of Obtaining Facts: The Method of Anecdote 



The reading of such a book as Romanes's "Animal Intel- 

 ligence," or of the letters about animal behavior in the 

 London Spectator, will reveal one method of gathering infor- 

 mation about what animals do. This has been termed the 

 Method of Anecdote. It consists essentially in taking the 

 report of another person regarding the action of an animal, 

 observed most commonly by accident, and attracting atten- 

 tion because of its unusual character. In certain cases the 

 observer while engaged in some other pursuit happens to 

 notice the singular behavior of an animal, and at his leisure 



