Difficulties and Methods 13 



animal, he should be able to hold in check the tendency to 

 humanize it and to take a personal pleasure in its achieve- 

 ments if it be unusually endowed. This is, to say the least, 

 not easy. Absolute indifference to the animals studied, if 

 not so dangerous as doting affection, is yet to be avoided. 



5. Methods of Interpreting Facts 



We may now turn from the problem of discovering the facts 

 about animal behavior to the problem of interpreting them. 

 If an animal behaves in a certain manner, what may we con- 

 clude the consciousness accompanying its behavior to be 

 like? As we have seen, the interpretation is often confused 

 with the observation, especially in the making of anecdotes ; 

 but theoretically the two problems are distinct. And at the 

 outset of our discussion of the former, we are obliged to 

 acknowledge that all psychic interpretation of animal behavior 

 must be on the analogy of human experience. We do not 

 know the meaning of such terms as perception, pleasure, 

 fear, anger, visual sensation, etc., except as these processes 

 form a part of the contents of our own minds. Whether we 

 will or no, we must be anthropomorphic in the notions we 

 form of what takes place in the mind of an animal. Accept- 

 ing this fundamental proposition, the students of animals 

 have yet differed widely in the conclusions they have drawn 

 from it. Some have gone to the extreme of declaring that 

 comparative psychology is therefore impossible. Others 

 have joyfully hastened to make animals as human as they 

 could. Still others have occupied an intermediate position. 



Descartes and Montaigne are the two writers antedating 

 the modern period who are most frequently quoted in this 

 connection. The latter had evidently a natural sympathy 

 with animals. In that most delightful twelfth chapter of the 



