752 



SCIENCE. 



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



a fish, Fundulus, with a low type of brain ; 

 the investigation of Yerkes and Bosworth 

 on the cray-fish; that of Yerlces on the 

 turtle; those on birds by various observ- 

 ers; and others to which the limitations 

 of time do not permit me to allude seem 

 to be in the right direction; all the 

 more as in the case of fishes, turtles and 

 other aquatic creatures ordinary observa- 

 tions must, in the nature of the case, be 

 very restricted. We should surely expect 

 that simple association processes would 

 play a larger part in the psychic life of 

 such creatures than in that of mammals. 

 But when it is urged that ' association proc- 

 esses ' with instinct explain all, or prac- 

 tically all, in the mental make-up of ani- 

 mals, I must enter a most vigoroiis protest. 

 Mr. Kinnaman is not sure, as a conse- 

 quence of his investigations on the monkey, 

 and as Dr. Thorndike believes, that they 

 have no 'free ideas' — to use the terminol- 

 ogy of the latter, and expresses his views 

 regarding the monkey and animals gener- 

 ally, as follows: "Whether these animals 

 have 'free ideas' and general notions be- 

 yond the mere 'recept' and are capable of 

 real analogical reasoning, can not be posi- 

 tively determined. If they do the processes 

 certainly do not rise to the level of full 

 reflex consciousness. Yet there is no way 

 of knowing, because there is no certain way 

 of having the consciousness that the animal 

 has. But that these monkeys have often 

 acted objectively just as human beings act 

 when they have these mental activities is 

 most certain. I am inclined to believe that 

 the human and animal consciousness are 

 not really different in kind, but only in 

 degree; the difference in degree, however, 

 is very great. ' ' Mr. Hobhouse believes that 

 there come points in growth where change 

 of degree becomes change of kind, and re- 

 fers to the fact that water may become 

 vapor or ice according to the rate of vibra- 

 tion of the constituent molecules. How- 



ever, analogies are proverbially dangerous. 



With this writer's other views on the re- 

 lation of human and animal intelligence as 

 expressed in the following words, I find 

 myself in accord : ' ' Human intelligence de- 

 velops out of a lower form by growth in 

 this feature of comprehension on the one 

 hand, and articulateness on the other, by 

 which the higher stage of animal intelli- 

 gence was marked off from the lower. 

 Mind, it is suggested, differs from mind in 

 the degree in which these powers are de- 

 veloped, in the experience which it can 

 comprehend and in the articulateness with 

 which it can comprehend it." 



A noteworthy recent contribution to our 

 subject is the address of Professor C. S. 

 Minot to the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science on, 'The Problem 

 of Consciousness in its Biological Aspects,' 

 from which it appears that the professed 

 psychologists are not doing all the thinking 

 on psychology or philosophy. His general 

 attitude may be understood from the fol- 

 lowing passage: "We must look to biolo- 

 gists for the mighty generalizations to come 

 rather than to the philosophers, because 

 great new thoughts are generated more by 

 the accumulation of observations than by 

 deep meditation. To know, observe. Ob- 

 serve more and more and in the end you. 

 will know. A generalization is a mountain 

 of observations; from the summit the out- 

 look is broad; the great observers climb to 

 the outlook while the mere thinker strug- 

 gles to imagine it. The best that can be 

 achieved by sheer thinking on the data of 

 ordinary human experience, we have al- 

 ready as our glorious inheritance. The 

 principal contribution of science to human 

 progress is the recognition of the value of 

 accumulating data which are found outside 

 of ordinary human experience." Minot 's 

 cardinal principle is thus expressed: "The 

 function of consciousness is to dislocate 

 in time the reactions from sensations." 



