750 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 489. 



experience— they learn in a very few in- 

 stances. ' 



Mr. Hobhouse was one of the first to 

 recognize clearly, though I do not say ade- 

 quately, that the success of the animal in 

 certain situations depends largely on the 

 degree to which it can attend to anything 

 in hand. It is not sufficient that an ani- 

 mal be stimulated, as by hunger and the 

 sight of food— to instance a favorite stim- 

 ulus used by the laborators — the animals 

 must, if it would succeed in certain com- 

 plicated situations, be able to exercise an 

 inhibitory influence and direct its attention 

 to the essential points in the solution of a 

 problem, and in this respect not only do 

 groups but individuals differ greatly. 

 Speaking generally, the poodle has the 

 power of attention above every other breed 

 of dogs, so far as the learning of tricks is 

 concerned, yet in the hunting field the 

 pointer or setter is incomparably his su- 

 perior, even in this matter of attention. 

 But there is much in Mr. Hobhouse 's gen- 

 eralization, ' that an animal can shift its 

 attention to this or that object, or change 

 within the sphere of perception, but it ap- 

 parently can not follow out the structure 

 of any complex object with any minuteness 

 and accuracy,' and I would add that it is 

 just here that man is so far in advance of 

 the animal and some individuals, especially 

 among men, superior to others. 



The experimental examination of this 

 point, so far as animals are concerned, of- 

 fers an inviting and possibly fruitful field. 

 Mr. Hobhouse found the Rhesus monkey 

 less attentive than his dog, and not inore 

 so than the cat. But attention can be cul- 

 tivated, as was shown by the improvement 

 of this writer's dog Jack. Both the dog 

 and the cat, he tells us, showed a general 

 appreciation of what was to be done, for 

 they became excited when preparations 

 were made for a fresh experiment, even if 

 it was of a new kind. Speaking of another 



dog, Mr. Hobhouse says: 'but apparently 

 she was guided by what in the hiunan being 

 we should call common sense,' an opinion 

 which of itself suffices to show that though 

 conservative, he does not belong to the ex- 

 treme agnostic school of comparative psy- 

 chology. On p. 222 of his book, Mr. Hob- 

 house presents the following suinmary: 

 "On the whole, then, it would, seem that 

 animals are influenced by similarity of re- 

 lations. Not that they dissect out the com- 

 mon element which constitutes a class iden- 

 tity; they have not solved the problem 

 which has baffled logicians; it is rather 

 that they have a concrete perception of the 

 man or animal, house or locality, with 

 which they are familiar; that such an ob- 

 ject contains many objects in various rela- 

 tions, and that when they meet another 

 object, similar in general character, i. e., 

 really in its constitutive relations to the 

 first, they know how to deal with it. This 

 implies that they have the power of grasp- 

 ing an object as a whole, including distinct 

 elements which I have called concrete ex- 

 perience, and the power of applying this 

 experience, which I have called practical 

 judgment." And again, he makes the fol- 

 lowing comprehensive statement, which is 

 worth quoting in full : ' ' However this may 

 be, we have some ground for thinking that 

 the more intelligent animals have a knowl- 

 edge of surrounding objects which they 

 apply in action; that they are capable of 

 learning to act in accordance with physical 

 changes which they witness ; that they may 

 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, evi- 

 dence has been brought that in the process 

 by which they learn, not repetition of in- 

 stance, but concentration of attention is 

 the important point. Lastly, it is sug- 

 gested that in some eases they not only 



