May 13, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



75J 



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 learned, aid them in gaining their 

 ends." 



"We have thus gone over all the points 

 enumerated on p. 134, as descriptive of 

 concrete experience and practical judg- 

 ment, and have seen some ground for im- 

 puting each and all to the higher animals. 

 At no point, perhaps, is the evidence con- 

 clusive, but it is to be remembered that 

 these functions are indicated so that evi- 

 dence of capacity for one is indirect evi- 

 dence of capacity for another. We have, 

 therefore, a set of independent arguments 

 all pointing in the same direction, and it 

 is on this convergence of evidence rather 

 than on decisive proof at any point, that 

 our hypothesis must rest." 



But little credit has been given to ani- 

 mals by the laborators for inhibition or 

 self-restraint. Their experiments were not 

 calculated to bring this quality into bold 

 relief— quite the contrary. Such experi- 

 ments often tend to cause mental disorder, 

 so that one is not observing the animal at 

 its best, but at its worst. Mr. Hobhouse, 

 however, has not wholly neglected this sub- 

 ject, for he remarks that ' ' the self-restraint 

 of the pointer is the result of severe train- 

 ing, but we must not regard it as the result 

 of mere blind habit superseding blind im- 

 pulse, for, as Diezel remarks, the same dog 

 who will refrain from following a hare in 

 his master's presence will eagerly chase it 

 if unobserved. The impulse is not instinct, 

 but is controlled by the knowledge of re- 

 sults. ' ' 



This subject is another on which fruitful 

 work might be done; and here again one 

 finds the greatest difference between indi- 

 vidual animals as also between individual 

 men. The difficulties in carrying out ex- 

 periments on monkeys, because of their 



restlessness, are great, and Dr. Thorndike 

 and Mr. Kinnaman deserve great credit for 

 their perseverance, though I must say I 

 should not have expected the most satis- 

 factory results from some of their tests. 

 Dr. Thorndike points out that the monkeys 

 represent progress in mental development 

 from the generalized mammalian type 

 towards man in several directions, as in 

 their sensory and motor equipment, but he 

 is inclined, in accordance with his views of 

 animal intelligence and psychology gener- 

 ally, to make all things pivot on the asso- 

 ciation process. He says, "Let us not 

 wonder at the comparative absence of free 

 ideas in the monkeys, much less at the ab- 

 sence of inferences or concepts. Let us not 

 wonder that the only demonstrable intel- 

 lectual advance of the monkeys over the 

 mammals in general is the change from the 

 few narrowly confined practical associa- 

 tions to an amplitude of all sorts, for that 

 may turn out to be at the bottom the only 

 demonstrable advance of man, an advance 

 which in connection with the brain acting 

 with increased delicacy and irritability 

 brings in its train the functions which 

 mark off human mentality from that of all 

 other animals." And in his paper on the 

 'Evolution of the Human Intellect,' he ex- 

 presses the opinion that the "Intellectual 

 evaluation of the race consists in the in- 

 crease of the number, delicacy, complexity, 

 prominence and speed-formation of such 

 associations. In man this increase reaches 

 such a point that apparently a new type 

 of mind results which conceals the real 

 continuity of the process." 



I can not but think myself that this is 

 only a small part, a mere chapter of the 

 whole story, and that by believing this to 

 be the whole we retard progress. I wish to 

 point out, however, that there does not seem 

 to be the same objection to the methods of 

 the laborators when applied to lower verte- 

 brates. Dr. Thorndike 's own studies on 



