264 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



haviour of this kind is not uncommon, at least among 

 the more intelligent mammals. It will be worth our while 

 to analyse a few instances. 



If it is true that a pointer will sometimes adopt, 

 untaught, the plan of running round cover so that he 

 drives the game towards his master, he evidently acts on 

 the basis of a familiar experience. 1 He knows how his 

 action will afreet the birds, and he knows what his master 

 wants. Granted this knowledge, it is very easy to under- 

 stand how he applies it to the circumstances before him, 

 and so forms his plan. If we refuse to grant it, the whole 

 proceeding becomes unintelligible. There is no habit in 

 the matter, for the dog is adapting his action newly to 

 meet a difficulty ; while, if we call it association of ideas, 

 then, the idea of the birds rising must be an idea of them 

 rising at a given moment in a given direction as the result 

 of his action i.e., it is equivalent to an anticipation. In 

 such cases it makes little difference whether we speak of 

 association of ideas or of inference, provided always that 

 it is understood that an idea definitely applied to percep- 

 tion is equivalent to a judgment. There are other cases, 

 however, in which the term Association becomes altogether 

 inappropriate. Mr. Lloyd Morgan, in discussing whether 

 animals can reason, quotes 2 a story contributed by Mr. 

 Stone to Animal Intelligence of two dogs. 



" One of them, the larger, had a bone, and when he had left it 

 the smaller dog went to take it ; the larger one growled, and the 

 other retired to a corner. Shortly afterwards the larger dog went 

 out ; but the other did not appear to notice this, and, at any rate, 

 did not move. A few minutes later the large dog was heard to 

 bark out of doors ; the little dog then, without a moment's hesi- 

 tation, went straight to the bone and took it." 



On this % Mr. Stone comments : 



"It thus appears quite evident that she reasoned That dog is 

 barking out of doors, therefore he is not in this room, therefore it 

 is safe for me to take the bone. The action was so rapid as to be 

 clearly a consequence of the other dog's barking." 



1 See Hutchinson, pp. 51 and 289, and compare Schaler, Domesticated 

 Animals, p. 28 (a more complicated device). 



2 Comparative Psychology, p. 300. 



