24 The Animal Mind 



sciousness. And precisely the same is true of all my sensa- 

 tions, thoughts, and feelings. 



Since an inner world of experience exists, we may legiti- 

 mately try to investigate it. For this purpose we possess 

 a method, which is called introspection. We can, that is, 

 attentively and, if we have had practice, dispassionately 

 and scientifically, observe what goes on in our own con- 

 sciousness when we receive certain stimuli and make cer- 

 tain movements. Further, we can, by the use of the same 

 kind of inference from one case to another similar case, 

 upon which all scientific generalization is based, infer that 

 when a being whose structure resembles ours receives 

 the same stimulus that affects us and moves in the same 

 way as a result, he has an inner experience which resembles 

 our own. Finally, we may extend this inference to the 

 lower animals, with proper safeguards, just as far as they 

 present resemblances in structure and behavior to ourselves. 

 Our object in this book will always be the interpretation 

 of the inner aspect of the behavior of animals; we shall 

 be interested in what animals do only as it throws light 

 upon what they feel. To the true psychologist, no chal- 

 lenge is so enticing as that presented by the problem of 

 how it feels to be another person or another animal ; and 

 although we must sometimes give up the problem in despair, 

 yet we have also our successes. We have wonderfully 

 advanced, within the last twenty-five years, in knowledge 

 as to how the world looks from the point of view of our 

 brother animals. 



We may now note briefly some of the special precau- 

 tions that must be observed in interpreting the conscious 

 aspect of animal behavior. First, there is no doubt that 

 great caution should be used in regarding the quality of 

 a human conscious process as identical with the quality 



