10 METHOD OF STUDY. 



In an investigation in which comparison is constantly 

 being made between the human and animal mind, it is all- 

 important that man's standard, ideal, or type of the human 

 mind should not be too high. It is much safer and sounder 

 to form his ideal or average from the mental condition or 

 phenomena of the lowest races and most degraded classes 

 of man, than from those of the highly cultured Englishman 

 or American, German or Frenchman. 



Much has been made, by those who deny that animals 

 possess mind at all, of the ever-present danger of confounding 

 resemblance with identity ; and I do not desire to conceal or 

 depreciate the magnitude or frequency of occurrence of 

 such pitfalls for the unwary. But the fact that the ex- 

 istence of such difficulties or dangers is admitted by all 

 parties those who affirm, as well as those who deny, the 

 possession by the lower animals of mind of the same nature 

 as that of man merely indicates the desirability of the 

 possession by the student of comparative psychology of the 

 special qualifications before enumerated. 



No doubt we can only make guesses or conjectures at the 

 truth ; we can attain but probabilities as to the presence or 

 absence in the lower animals, under certain circumstances, 

 of such faculties as consciousness. The difficulties of any- 

 thing approaching proof or demonstration are sometimes 

 insuperable ; but these difficulties are equally great in 

 regard to the analysis of the mental condition of countless 

 thousands of human beings, in whose case at least it can- 

 not be affirmed that analogical study is not admissible or 

 appropriate. 



The practice of mental analysis is indispensable to the 

 student, who has only patiently to reflect upon the mental 

 qualities involved, for instance, in some of the commonest 

 tricks or feats of performing or other animals, to become 

 convinced of the number, nature, and variety of their psychi- 

 cal aptitudes or gifts. 



