CH.IX. LEARNING AMONG HIGHER ANIMALS 175 



by the animal and used to determine its action. Ideas of 

 "persons," "opening doors,'* "attracting attention," and so 

 forth, would have no effect unless attached to the existing 

 circumstances. If the cat has such abstract ideas at all, 

 she must have something more namely, the power of 

 applying them to present perception. The " ideas " of 

 calling attention and of dropping the mat must somehow 

 be brought together. Further, if the process is one of 

 association, it is a strange coincidence that the right asso- 

 ciates are chosen. If the cat began on a string of associations 

 starting from the people in the room, she might as easily 

 go on to dwell on the pleasures of getting in, of how she 

 would coax a morsel of fish from one or a saucerful of 

 cream from another, and so spend her time in idle reverie. 

 But she avoids these associations, and selects those suited 

 to her purpose. In short, we find signs on the one hand 

 of the application of ideas, on the other of selection. Both 

 of these features indicate a higher stage than that of sheer 

 association. This we shall always find, if we endeavour to 

 apply the association of ideas regressively as explaining 

 the apparent choice of means to a desired end. 



But there is another possible line of explanation. Mr. 

 Lloyd Morgan's dog Tony learned to open a gate by lifting 

 the latch with his head. I do not know how my cat 

 learnt to knock, but Mr. Lloyd Morgan tells us that Tony 



" after looking out between the bars in a number of places in 

 the railings, at length chanced to gaze out under, and at the 

 same time inadvertently lift, the latch." [The dog then] " after 

 a while profited by the fortunate results of an originally fortuitous 

 experience, and now opens the gate whenever he wants to 

 do so." i 



Here, then, is a way back to association. It is of course 

 still possible on the facts before us that Tony grasped the 

 relation which he had once experienced saw, however 

 vaguely, that pushing in his head at a particular point and 

 then lifting it would get the gate open, and that he after- 

 wards applied this knowledge. But it is also possible that 

 the pleasure of getting through became associated with 



1 Habit and Instinct, p. 154. 



