12 THE HUMANIZING OF THE BRUTE. 



The unconscious distortion of the facts is almost harm- 

 less compared to the unconcious neglect of an animal's 

 mental life until it verges on the unusual and marvel- 

 lous." 1 ) 



The defective philosophical training and superficial 

 education, so prevalent in our times, suggest a third 

 reason for this mania of ascribing intelligence to ani- 

 mals. Ever since the destructive attempts of Kant 

 and his disciples to shake and shatter the realms of 

 ideas, the true object of philosophy is ignored and 

 lost. The noble queen, the exalted offspring of etern- 

 al wisdom, has been stripped of her royal dignity; and 

 while ruthless hands have snatched the crown from 

 off her head, she has "been degraded to be the 

 cringing handmaid of experimental science. And 

 what was the unavoidable result? That very soon the 

 principles of the old and sound philosophy fell into 

 contempt, whilst in their stead there rose a confus- 

 ion and obscurity of ideas which oftentimes led to the 

 defense of most obvious errors permeating certain 

 branches of science. Thus our modern psychology, as 

 upheld by many of its advocates, is a veritable monstro- 

 sity. Wundt can not refrain from blaming mod- 

 ern psychology for its "premature application of no- 

 tions insufficiently determined" and for its "ignor- 

 ance of systematic psychological methods. ' ' Thus he 

 explains the fact "that the psychic processes of 

 brutes are not taken for what they appear in imme- 

 diate and unprejudiced observation, but that the ob- 

 server's reflections are transferred to the animal. If 

 any vital action has the appearance of possibly 



1 ) Thorndike, 1. c. p. 4. 



