558 STUDIES ON THE MENTAL LIFE OF ANIMALS. 



8. Experiments with dogs. — From these, too, it appears certain "that 

 the animals were unable to form an association leading- to an act from 

 having seen the other animal or animals perform the act in a certain 

 situation. Not only do animals not have associations accompanied, 

 more or less permeated and altered, l\y inference and judg-ement, they 

 do not have associations of the sort which may be acquired from other 

 animals by imitation."" Imitation can not in the animal take the place 

 of reason, since it does not even exist. "If a general imitative faculty 

 is not sufficiently developed to succeed with such simple acts as those 

 of the experiments quoted, it must be confessed that the facult}'' is in 

 these higher mammals still rudimentary and capable of influencing to 

 only the most simple and habitual acts or else that, for some reason, 

 its sphere of influence is limited to a certain class of acts possessed of 

 some qualit'ative difference other than mere simplicity which renders 

 them imitable."^ 



Another point in this question of imitation was brought out in the 

 experiments with dogs. It was wished to ascertain, not whether imi- 

 tation could facilitate the execution of an act which the subject could 

 have performed, though less easily, by himself alone, but whether 

 imitation could bring him to accomplish an act too difficult for and 

 superior to his personal resources. 



Two dogs, Nos. 3 and 1, were placed in two identical boxes set face 

 to face opposite each other, so that No. 3, himself incapable of open- 

 ing his box, saw b}' what movement No. 1 let himself out. The result 

 was a (complete failure. The experiments were repeated five times at 

 intervals of 1 hour, .2-1:. and 48 hours. No. 3 certainly saw No. 1 go 

 out {S'o times, and probably saw him 93 other times. Finall}^ left to 

 himself for 40 minutes, he could not accomplish the necessary act. 

 The conclusions derived from other analogous experiments are exactly 

 the same. Dog No. 1 had learned to release himself from a box by 

 jumping up and biting a cord. Dogs 2 and 3 were })rought in. Like 

 him, the^" jumped and l)it, scratched here and there with their claws, 

 but they never jumped after the cord. Dog No. 2 was tried with this 

 series of experiments 8 times; he saw No. 4 get out 70 times, yet he 

 never succeeded in imitating him. No. 3 was tried 9 times at intervals 

 of 1 hour, 24, and 48 hours; he certainly saw No. 1 bite the cord and 

 escape 75 times; his want of success was the same. 



VII. 



The conclusion finally reached, that animals no not imitate, seems 

 contrary to the opinion of certain animal trainers interrogated bv the 

 author; but the facts appear to warrant this conclusion. 



"Thorndike, pp. 61, 62. ^Thorndike, loc. cit., p. 62. 



