ix LEARNING AMONG HIGHER ANIMALS 185 



defined. Do animals profit by experience of this kind ? 

 If so, their action falls outside the category of habituation. 

 If an animal pulls a string because having done so before it 

 has given him pleasure, it is possible to regard his educa- 

 tion as the gradual growth of a random way of acting into 

 a habit. But if he pulls it because he has seen it pulled, 

 and then got the pleasant result, his act appears rather as a 

 practical application of what he has seen a perceptual 

 relation converted into a practical adjustment. It is quite 

 possible that an animal should get to this point without 

 being capable of the slightly more complex act of applying 

 to himself what another does on his own account. 1 



1 Mr. Thorndike's experiments have given rise to voluminous discussion 

 and a long series of experiments in American laboratories designed to 

 confirm or refute his results. Meanwhile he has reprinted his original 

 monograph without substantial alteration, and I think that it is on the 

 whole best to leave the criticisms contained in this chapter in their 

 original form. 



