x SOME EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS 243 



the association of the trained-animal-performing-the-act with the getting- 

 of-food as it is an association of the act-being-performed with the getting- 

 of-food" (p. 20). It may be remarked that Mr. Berry found evidence of 

 imitation where both the imitator obtained food each time that the 

 trained animal performed the act and also where the imitator was not fed 

 at the moment but was free to imitate. He found no cases of imitation 

 where the imitator observed a performance of the act from another com- 

 partment. This again coincides precisely with the view taken in the text 

 of the limits of possible learning by perception of results. 



With regard to dogs, Mr. Jennings ("Animal Behaviour," reprinted from 

 the American Naturalist, Vol. XLII.) quotes a paper by Mr. G. van T. 

 Hamilton, which unfortunately I have not been able to obtain, describing 

 an experiment in which a dog had to learn that in order to escape from a. 

 pen he must select for pressing a lever bearing the same sign as one that 

 he could observe on a sign-board elsewhere in the pen. The dog suc- 

 ceeded in this, but unfortunately "discovered a much simpler method of 

 action that accomplished the same results. He merely began at one end 

 of the series and pressed the levers in order till he came to the one that 

 worked." When electric shocks were attached to the wrong levers he 

 decided that he did not care to play that game any longer and the experi- 

 ments had to end. The dog's method was in fact the same as that 

 described by Mr. Hamilton as used by animals of various species in 

 learning to escape from a room, and by my monkey in opening drawers. 

 It is one in which the animal experimented on at least shows enough 

 intelligence to outwit the psychologist. 



Lastly, Mr. L. W. Cole made some remarkable experiments with 

 raccoons that have been already referred to. Three signals of different 

 colours were shown to the raccoons in a certain order. Upon the appear- 

 ance of the third they had to mount some steps in order to obtain food. 

 The order could be varied and they had to learn to discriminate between 

 the series which meant and the series which did not mean food. The 

 raccoons achieved this rather complicated result (Jennings, loc. cit., cf. 

 Gregg and McPheeters, " Behaviour of Raccoons to a Temporal Series of 

 Stimuli," J.A.B., 1913, p. 241. I regret that I have not been able to lay 

 hands on Mr. Cole's first paper) and would themselves claw up the 

 signals and, as will be mentioned elsewhere, tore down the wrong one. 

 Whether this remarkable result can be quoted as proof of the existence 

 of images of the unseen signals in the mind of the raccoons I will not 

 pretend to determine, but that it involved actions directed by relation to 

 that which was not present on the basis of past experiences in which the 

 object had been presented I am clear, and so to direct action is the 

 function which practical ideas perform. Mr. Cole, in his reply to Dr. 

 Hunter and Messrs. Gregg and McPheeters ("Chicago Experiments with 

 Raccoons," J.A.B., 1915, pp. 158, etc.), points out that the explanations to 

 which his critics are driven come by a roundabout process to the admis- 

 sion of a function identical with that which he supposes. Thus he quotes 

 Dr. Hunter as writing : " Some intra-organic (non-orientation) factor not 

 visible to the experimenter must be assumed in order to explain a number 

 of the correct reactions of the raccoons and all of the successful reactions 

 of the children. These cues fulfil an ideational function." And again : 

 " By applying the term ideas to these cues, I mean that they are similar 

 to the memory idea of human experience so far as function and mechan- 

 ism are concerned " This really admits all that is here required. Of 

 what passes within another organism we can know nothing but the nature 

 of its functions and its origin. In full logical strictness this applies to 

 every human being as it does to animals. 



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