Mental Processes in Animals, 341 



false constructs, that is to say, constructs which examina- 

 tion shows to be false. Through my friend and colleague, 

 Mr. A. P. Chattock, I am able to give a case in point. I 

 quote from a letter received by Mr. Chattock: "Your 

 father asks me to tell you about our old spaniel Dash and 

 the picture. I remember it well, though it must be some- 

 where about half a century ago. "We had just unpacked 

 and placed on the old square pianoforte, which then stood 

 at the end of the dining-room, the well-known print of 

 Landseer's *A Distinguished Member of the Humane 

 Society.' When Dash came into the room and caught 

 sight of it, he rushed forward, and jumped on the chair 

 which stood near, and then on the pianoforte in a moment, 

 and then turned away with an expression, as it seemed to 

 us, of supreme disgust." 



I think we may say, then, that the higher animals are 

 able to proceed a long way in the formation and definition 

 of highly complex constructs analogous to, but probably 

 differing somewhat from, those which we form ourselves. 

 These constructs, moreover, through association with re- 

 constructs or representations, link themselves in trains, so 

 that a sensation or group of sensations may suggest a 

 series of reconstructs or a series of remembered phenomena. 

 We here approach the question of inferences, of which 

 more anon. But in this connection passing reference may 

 be made to the phenomena of dreaming. Dogs and some 

 other animals undoubtedly seem to dream. 



The nature of dreaming may, perhaps, be best illustrated 

 by a rough analogy. Professor Clifford likened the human 

 consciousness to a rope made up of a great number of 

 occasionally interlacing strands. Let us picture such a 

 rope floating in water. Much of it is submerged; only 

 the upper part is visible at the surface. This upper part 

 is like the series of mental phenomena of which we are 

 distinctly conscious. Below this lie other series in the 

 half- submerged state of subconsciousness. Deeper still lie 

 unconscious physiological processes capable of emerging 

 into the shadow of subconsciousness or the light of distinct 



