PSYCHOLOGY 293 



among the animals," nor can I comprehend why he will allow 

 to man alone " volition " in the individual accomplishment of 

 instinctive actions, and denies it entirely to animals. For even 

 animals modify their instinctive actions (e.g., nest-building) if 

 natural circumstances, or experimental conditions devised by 

 man, compel them so to do. 



It is obvious that many erroneous hypotheses have passed 

 current from lack of opportunity to carry out experiments with 

 animals. Tiarkheim and many others limit the power of 

 deliberation to man, as if the higher animals were utterly in- 

 capable of this process. The crow in the tree does not fly 

 away when the tree is struck with a stick, but makes an im- 

 mediate flight when it catches sight of a gun. The elephant 

 which at first cannot succeed in dragging a balk of timber will 

 carry it perfectly as soon as it has balanced the timber on its 

 tusks. Apes if they cannot open hard nuts with their teeth 

 will crack them on a stone. Wundt 1 regards very sceptically 

 these instances of reasoned action on the part of animals ; he 

 considers that animals like men are capable of " similarity 

 associations " in time and space, and so perform acts which in 

 their results are equivalent to the products of intellectual 

 functions. He draws a line, however, between apparently 

 intelligent associative action and intelligent action proper, in 

 that the effect of association does not go beyond the connection 

 of particular ideas, no matter whether these ideas are directly 

 excited by sense-impressions, or are only reproduced by them. 

 Intellectual activity, in the narrower sense of the word, pre- 

 supposes a demonstrable formation of concepts, judgments and 

 inferences, or an activity of the constructive imagination. But 

 just as we cannot deny the formation of concepts, judgments and 

 inferences by the higher animals, although they are undoubtedly 

 less clearly defined than in man, we must admit the possibility 

 of the deliberate action by animals. This power of selective 

 action, which the majority of the older psychologists did not 

 confine to man, is in no way identical with "free-will," and the 

 two ideas must be clearly differentiated. 



Wundt devotes a whole chapter in his book to the problem 

 of free-will and describes many motives, some conscious, others 



1 Wundt, loc. cit., p. 359. 



