348 PSYCHOLOGY. 



If so much is clear to the reader, he will be willing to 

 iidmit that the mind in ivhich this mode of association most 

 prevails will, from its better opportunity of extricating 

 characters, be the one most prone to reasoned thinking; 

 whilst, on the other hand, a mind in which we do not 

 detect reasoned thinking will probably be one in which 

 association by contiguity holds almost exclusive sway. 



Geniuses are, by common consent, considered to diffei 

 from ordinary minds by an unusual development of associa- 

 tion by similarity. One of Professor Bain's best strokes ol 

 work is the exhibition of this truth.* It applies to geniuses 

 in the line of reasoning as well as in other lines. And as the 

 genius is to the vulgarian, so the vulgar human mind is to 

 the intelligence of a brute. Compared with men, it is 

 probable that brutes neither attend to abstract characters, 

 nor have associations by similarity. Their thoughts prob- 

 ably pass from one concrete object to its habitual concrete 

 successor far more uniformly than is the case with us. In 

 other words, their associations of ideas are almost exclu- 

 sively by contiguity. It will clear up still farther oui 

 understanding of the reasoning process, if we devote a few 

 pages to 



THE INTELLECTUAL COTTTBAST BETWEEN" BKUTE AND MAN 



I will first try to show, by taking the best stories I car 

 find of animal sagacity, that the mental process involved 

 may as a rule be perfectly accounted for by mere contigu- 

 ous association, based on experience. Mr. Darwin, in his 

 ' Descent of Man,' instances the Arctic dogs, described by 

 Dr. Hayes, who scatter, when drawing a sledge, as soon a& 

 the ice begins to crack. This might be called by some aa 

 exercise of reason. The test would be. Would the most 

 intelligent Eskimo dogs that ever lived act so when placed 

 upon ice for the first time together ? A band of men from 

 the tropics might do so easily. Becognizing cracking to 

 be a sign of breaking, and seizing immediately the partial 

 character that the point of rupture is the point of greatest 



* See his Study of Character, chap, xv ; also Senses and Intellect, 

 'Intellect,' chap, ii, the latter half. 



