268 MIND IN EVOLUTION CHAP. 



the sequence AB. It applies this by setting to work to 

 produce A. It sees food placed in a box, it sees the door 

 shut and bolted ; then again it sees the bolt withdrawn, 

 and finds that it can open the door and get the food. Its 

 attention once clearly awakened to this sequence, it draws 

 the bolt for itself, opens the door, and gets fed. There is 

 here, first, the perception of a sequence of events ; and 

 then, a second stage, in which the perception has to be 

 worked into the effort of desire, and the motor impulses 

 necessary to the act. This second stage sometimes fails, 

 as when my dog refused to pull the drawer, the working 

 of which, as his actions seemed to show, he had perfectly 

 learnt. When it succeeds, it is a kind of synthesis of the 

 result of perception with the motor impulse effected by the 

 organism itself. This, then, is the simplest case of the 

 application of experience. Much more distinctive and 

 decisive are the cases referred to immediately above, in 

 which, on the strength of past experience, a certain event 

 is anticipated, and without any instruction or suggestion, 

 preparations are made to meet it. A few demonstrated 

 cases of this, which we may distinguish as spontaneous 

 application, would be sufficient to decide the whole 

 question before us ; but for animals below monkeys 

 evidence on the point is, as we have hinted, not wholly 

 satisfactory. 



5. However this may be, we have seen some ground for 

 thinking that the more intelligent animals have knowledge 

 of surrounding objects which they apply in action ; that 

 they are capable of learning to act in accordance with physi- 

 cal changes which they witness ; that they can be influenced 

 by the general similarities which unite individuals of the 

 same class, and can guide their action in dealing with any 

 object by the relation in which it stands to that which they 

 desire. Further, evidence has been brought that in the 

 process by which they learn, not repetition of instances, but 

 concentration of attention is the important point. Lastly, 

 it is suggested that in some cases, they not merely learn to 

 meet a given perception with a certain motor reaction, but 

 also to combine and adapt their actions so as to effect 

 physical changes which, as they have learnt, aid them in 



