i8o MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



Take Box E again, where the cats had to put out a paw 

 and claw a string outside the box a thing that would hardly 

 be done accidentally in many minutes of random clawing, 

 and would, one would say, not be done twice over in 

 such a manner within twenty experiments. One cat 

 (No. 6) after one success reduced its time to about ninety 

 seconds, and after the third trial to fifty seconds. It had a 

 few more trials, and after fourteen days its first experiment 

 took about one minute. These figures surely suggest 

 partial recollection rapidly becoming perfect, rather than a 

 slowly ingrained habit. Box I, which was opened by a 

 lever, appears to have been mastered by cat No. 3 in one 

 instance, while Nos. 4 and 5 seem to have had no difficulty 

 with it from the beginning their time never rising much 

 beyond half a minute, and remaining at a minimum after 

 the lapse of many days. 



In many cases no doubt the fluctuations persist longer 

 and the instances approximate more closely to the type 

 required by Mr. Thorndike's argument. But a few 

 instances to the contrary are sufficient to disprove his 

 sweeping general statement. It is quite possible that some 

 of the cats learnt the tricks more intelligently than others, 

 just as some failed to learn many tricks altogether. These 

 differences are still more marked in the case of the few 

 dogs experimented on. Hardly any of their time curves 

 can be called gradual unless the slope of a church steeple 

 is gradual. In the lever box, one dog's time curve came 

 down from several minutes to fifty seconds after a single 

 success. Another began with a time of some forty seconds 

 only, which he reduced in three experiments to eight or 

 ten. A third seems to have got the trick nearly perfect 

 after one success, and quite so after two. It seems 



and in the whole examination of Mr. Thorndike's important monograph, 

 I have been specially helped by Mr. A. E. Taylor. 



As to the fluctuations, it must be observed that the time taken can only 

 be a very rough and imperfect measure of the perfection of the cat's habit 

 or understanding as the case may be. Alterations in degree of liveliness, 

 accidental failures to clutch properly, and a dozen other causes, would 

 produce delays, and various fluctuations occurring in cases where habits 

 were well established seem to indicate that this occurred. Mr. Thorn- 

 dike does not seem to realise at all adequately the very rough and ready 

 character of his statistical methods. 



